Gene Hackman's the leader of a crew of thieves. He got caught on camera at a jewel heist so he needs to leave the country, but Danny DeVito's withholding the proceeds to make him do a different job stealing a bunch of gold from a plane. Worse, DiVito sticks his incompetent nephew (played by Sam Rockwell) on their crew. Much double-crossing ensues.
I will say this for David Mamet: The guy's dialogue is very distinctive. I've only seen one other movie of his - the name of which I can't recall, but I discussed watching on here a few years back during a visit to my dad's - and I still had a hunch who was behind this fairly quickly. Probably the, 'quiet like an ant pissing on cotton,' line that did it.
So I don't pay a lot of attention to the opening credits. There's stuff happening on screen to watch.
After a while, though, the dialogue starts to wear. Definitely by, 'cute like a Chinese baby,' I was tired of the snappy, ultimately meaningless catchphrases. The one about how long is a Chinese name. Well, it depends on the person, jackasses! Not all names are the same length!
That said, the actual heist was nifty. The misdirection and preparation, the way Hackman has to adapt to the one security guard not being there when he was planning on it. I really wasn't sure how it was going to play out. I figured either Hackman was going to win, or Rebbeca Pidgeon (playing his girlfriend) would. Because I wasn't sure whose side she was on ultimately, besides her own. Which is fine. I don't think Hackman was really on anyone's side other than his own, at the end of the day. Got one guy in his crew killed, basically pimped Pidgeon out to Rockwell to throw him and DiVito off track. I guess Delroy Lindo's character came out the best, despite getting a bullet in what sure looked like it would be a lung.
The acting's good. They sell the dialogue. They play the roles so that things we (and DiVito and Rockwell) see early on, personality traits, come up later on as decoys. Oh, Delroy Lindo's letting his temper get the best of him again. Or not. That sort of thing. Rockwell plays an annoying doofus well. Very sure he's got everything figured out, not smart enough to second guess anything.
2 comments:
I am anti-Mamet in general, because I blame him for Bendis.
I thought about Bendis a few times while I was watching this. I feel as though Mamet's characters are more apt to actually get to the point of a conversation, or at least spend their time saying things they think are clever, whereas Bendis' characters repeat each other relentlessly, and don't even attempt to sound clever.
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