BEFORE: My co-worker had an exciting weekend, sky-diving for the first time. It was one of those things on her bucket list. (By contrast, on my bucket list is "make sure you NEVER jump out of a plane". If I make it to the end of my life without doing that, success!) But I'm jumping on a metaphorical plane to fly to Australia for this next heist film. From a casino heist to a racetrack heist, this seems to follow quite naturally. And linking is easy since David Arquette co-starred with Guy Pearce (last seen in "The King's Speech) in "Ravenous", one of my fave films.
THE PLOT: Centers around three brothers, sophisticated armed robbers who work with their long-time lawyer and corrupt police to pull off the biggest heist in Australian history.
AFTER: This film took a while to make sense at first, and not just because the Australian accents were so thick, and a couple characters seem to talk in a language all their own (thankfully, there were subtitles) but also because the set-up includes a lot to take in. Three brothers start out in jail, and apparently can get out on furlough if they agree to help plan another of their signature heists. For this to work, the warden, the lawyer and the police all need to be in on the plan - so the take gets split up many ways, and as we've seen before, that always leads to trouble.
I guess the rules are different down in Australia - what do you expect from a country that was founded as a prison colony? Here in America we try to keep our criminals in jail, but what do I know?
As I've seen before in films like "The Town", "Snatch" and umm, last night's film, it's a hard road toward making characters like this sympathetic, but it can be accomplished in a number of different ways. You can make the characters weak or naive in some way, as in a film like Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks". This technique is used here with one dumber, childlike brother and another who is suffering from food poisoning - these things humanize the characters and give the audience a way in. The third brother is having a strained relationship with his wife, and romantic troubles also have a sympathetic effect.
Without these things, it comes down to a matter of degrees - how evil are they? If they commit these complex robberies, "Ocean's Eleven"-style, without anyone getting hurt, then I suppose it could be a lot worse. Which brings up another trick for making these characters sympathetic - the use of foil characters that are much more evil, who kill without remorse, makes them look better by comparison. And since there are no real "hero" characters, like honest policemen, the audience is forced to gravitate to the lesser of the evils, and support the main characters.
It's a neat little trick, but it still feels like a trick. I enjoy a good double-cross (or triple-cross) film as much as the next guy, and there's plenty of maneuvering before, during and after the heist, so this may keep you guessing about who's going to come out on top, and how they're going to do it.
Also starring Rachel Griffiths (last seen in "Blow"), Joel Edgerton (last heard in "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole"), Robert Taylor, Damien Richardson.
RATING: 5 out of 10 duffel bags
No comments:
Post a Comment