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Dialogue steals the show
Even when the plot of Heist falters, inspired exchanges raise David Mamet's latest film to the level of art.
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 8, 2001
[Photo: Warner Bros.]
Gene Hackman plays cagey boat builder and gold thief Joe, who delays sailing into retirement with his inscrutable wife, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon), to attempt one more robbery.
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Like many great writers, David Mamet probably keeps a notebook close to record his spontaneous ideas for firecracker dialogue. Such perfect cadence and poetically profane composition doesn't come to mind on demand. But it demands to be captured when it comes.
Mamet's new film, Heist, feels created from napkin notes stuffed into the pages of a notebook that was shaken later for all of the loose inspiration to fall out. The verbal sparks are there, yet the plot benefiting from them is conveniently fickle, heading in whatever direction the next zinger requires.
This is a movie in which someone says "Nobody lives forever" for no reason other than allowing someone else to reply: "Frank Sinatra gave it a shot." Mamet's words are as eloquently piercing as usual, but the circumstances provoking them are arbitrary. Heist is a collection of double-crosses, many of them telegraphed by Mamet's reputation or his lazy adherence to film noir convention.
Femme fatales can never be trusted. The same goes for a kingpin's overeager relative foisted into a criminal conspiracy. Retiring crooks always are lured into one last job and the most genial one will die. Those are exactly the kinds of cliches Mamet has successfully avoided in puzzlers such as The Spanish Prisoner, Homicide and House of Games. Not this time.
Gene Hackman plays aging but still agile Joe Moore, a boat builder by cover and a gold thief by trade. Joe's latest clockwork robbery, complete with tough talk, secret hand signals and a timpani beat, opens the movie and appears to close his career. He's "burnt," caught unmasked on security cameras and therefore easier to catch. Joe decides to take his share, his inscrutable wife, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon), and a sailboat to tropical retirement.
Things go wrong when Joe's fence, Bergman (Danny DeVito), won't cough up the dough. He wants Joe's gang to go after a shipment of Swiss gold ingots. Of course Joe will, or there wouldn't be a movie. He agrees after several sharply written exchanges and the introduction of Bergman's immediately mistrusted nephew Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), who must be part of the team.
[Photo: Warner Bros.]
Danny DeVito plays Gene Hackman’s fence and persuades him to undertake one more project in Heist.
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From there, Heist piles on so many falsities that a viewer finally gives up believing anything. Will the last person telling the truth please turn out the lights before leaving? The scams are intricate enough and a couple of twists are surprising, but the film feels more like a vocabulary exercise than a well-crafted caper.
But how does one complain when someone describes an accomplice as "so cool that when sheep go to bed they count him?" Or another character proclaims his faith in religion because a Bible in someone's coat pocket stopped a bullet? Mamet's cool kicker: "If he had another Bible in front of his face, he'd be alive today." The dialogue crackles and arcs like a mad scientist's electrodes and the actors probably smiled as much between takes as viewers do while watching them.
Hackman is perfectly cast as Joe, never more angry than cagey. DeVito's relatively small role has bite and Delroy Lindo adds muscular comic relief. Mamet regular Ricky Jay still isn't much of an actor, but that lumpy face and deadpan delivery work. Pidgeon -- Mamet's wife in real life -- continues to be the most impressive female actor nobody knows. The weak link is Rockwell, whose rakish mustache and nervous twitch betray Jimmy's motivation much too soon.
Heist is a good movie that could be a groaner if not for the brilliant dialogue lifting it to a level of art, sort of like a Glengarry Glen Robbery. Mamet's forte isn't action but the words that become it. He isn't able to take this story smoothly from A to Z, but he juggles the alphabet like nobody else.
Heist
- Grade: B
- Director: David Mamet
- Cast: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sam Rockwell, Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay
- Screenplay: David Mamet
- Rating: R; profanity, violence, brief sexual situations
- Running time: 105 min.
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