Genre movies, whether they’re whodunits, road movies, or, like Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief, heist movies, can be tricky beasts. They give you the comfort of a recognizable formula, but if not played well they’re nothing more than predictable cliché. While there’s never any doubt where The Good Thief is going in terms of plot, the characters and the script are good enough and offer enough surprises to make it very watchable.
The leathery Nick Nolte, in a career-typical role, plays a washed-up American in the south of France whose one-time career as a thief has deteriorated into heroin and unlucky gambling. After befriending Anne (Nutsa Kukhiani), a world-weary prostitute at 17, he’s inspired to pull one last heist, this time stealing expensive paintings from a Monte Carlo casino. The twist is that the real paintings are not in the casino. The walls are adorned with copies and the real ones are stored in the basement of an adjoining compound. So, just as there are real and fake paintings, Nolte plans one real and one fake heist.
He gets together a comic and cosmopolitan crew to help him pull it off. There’s the Russian computer programmer (Emir Kusturica) who designed the security system and has a talent for rock music and mispronunciations. There are the Irish twins (Mark and Michael Polish) whom everyone in Monte Carlo believes to be one person. Finally, there are some shifty Algerians (Gerard Darmon and Said Taghmaoui), who round off the international set.
Most of these actors will be new to Canadian audiences, which gives the film a more realistic feel. In Ocean’s Eleven, you know George Clooney doesn’t rob casinos for a living because you know George Clooney is an actor. Here you get actors who are by and large so note-perfect you can believe they are playing themselves.
Although you may be reminded of such recent films as Ocean’s Eleven and The Thomas Crown Affair, The Good Thief is actually a remake of the 1950s New Wave classic Bob le Flameur, which might explain its authentic Continental suaveness. The title refers to the thief who was crucified with Jesus and given a place in Heaven alongside him, a hope that Nolte’s character holds onto for himself.
It helps if you like the heist genre, but when the actual robbery happens, it almost feels irrelevant. This film is mainly about atmosphere. It’s like a glossy advertisement for Europe—the locations, the clothes, the people. This owes much to Chris Menges’ splendid cinematography. He renders the entire Cote d’Azur all ivory and neon and permanent night. The characters sip coffee and drive fast cars, all inexplicably dressed up in designer suits.
The script is sometimes too fast for its own good, making it difficult to understand and appreciate. Sometimes it also feels as if the characters are repeating place names just for the sake of hearing them (“Go to Italy.” “What’s in Italy?” “Just go to Italy.”), like people about to go on vacation (“We’re going to Hawaii. Hawaii should be fun. Would you like us to bring you back anything from Hawaii?” “Stop saying Hawaii.”). Most of the time, though, the script stays within bounds and keeps the dialogue clipped, genuinely cool and at times funny.
Another crucial element is the great soundtrack. Great songs like a new Leonard Cohen tune, “A Thousand Kisses” and a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life” by Bono are allowed to play almost in entirety, so you actually get to savour them the whole way through.
With all this sensual decadence, and Jordan’s inventive, fluid direction, The Good Thief turns out to be a solid heist movie.
