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The gambler was also a career con man, who pulled so many heists that there is always an agent watching him. When he runs "out of dope, out of luck," he decides to participate in one last job. Usually the targets of heist movies are either museums or casinos, and in The Good Thief it's a combination of the two, the loot is priceless art from a French casino. He starts the plan with two friends who have stuck with him, Paulo (Said Taghaqui) and Raoul (Gerard Darmon). Bob Montagnet is that person we all know who makes decisions we hate yet is always forgiven because of the man he was, or can be.

There are always the elements that threaten the operation, and this movie it comes in the form of Anne (Nutsa Kukhianidze). She's a seventeen-year-old Russian girl who Bob takes a Travis Bickle-like interest in. Sporting a black eye, she says she doesn't need a protector, to which he responds "than that must just be a bad make-up job." She's cute, but in an annoying way. It's not a script blunder, but a casting mistake. There are plenty of pretty faces that could have fit this role better. The Good Thief is light on the gadgets that usually have a place in movies like this, the most prominent being a cigarette lighter that doubles as a camera. Soon the date is set, the team is assembled (one member is a transsexual bodybuilder scared of spiders) and we wait for how it can go wrong.

The Good Thief resembles the remake of Ocean's Eleven, both films feature diverse teams assembled by ex-cons attempting to rob casinos. But Steven Soderbergh went for the mainstream audience, casting huge stars in a film that was cool in a way that made it fun. The Good Thief is cool in a sleek way, with vivid colors and a romantic portrayal of the French Riviera. It has the dialogue one would expect, when an investor of the job becomes dissatisfied (Ralph Fiennes in a cameo) he threatens "What I do to your face will be cubist."

Neil Jordan's film is a smart and stylish crime movie where nothing, of course, is what it seems. This movie's best asset is that it features a very human main character without the perfect combination of wit and good looks. The Good Thief is one of the more original offerings of recent crime movies, remake or not.

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originally posted: 05/05/03 14:25:24
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