journal features

movie review - Heist

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Vancouver, 2002.01.05

This is a David Mamet flick, and that shows in the pacing, the dialogue, and the grim, over-real violence. This is a movie about a gang of robbers, led by a surly older fellow (played with irritable excellence by Gene Hackman) who has a much younger wife. Hackman's little troup, his wife, and his plans all run afoul of gangster Danny DeVito and *his* band of less-than-merry men. Hackman has been stealing things for DeVito for some time by this point, but the relationship is degrading. When DeVito's (utter slimeball) villian insists on 'just one more job', you know everything is going to go to hell.

And so it eventually does. All kinds of bad stuff happens before this one is through.

I've loved some of Mamet's other work, but this one was just a bit off. The characters all seem wired and testy, like they all decided to quit smoking a few days before the onset of the plot. And then there's the regularity with which people double cross one another, the constant switches with the loot, and the ruses to through one another off. All of this time-consuming crud gets pretty wearing, and it telegraphs the ending to a certain extent. Also a bit wearying is the language, which is a bit over-the-top. I wasn't disappointed with this movie, but it didn't grip me like State and Main, Homicide, Wag the Dog, or The Spanish Prisoner.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov