Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) is a veteran thief who, along with his partners -- Bobby (Delroy Lindo), Pinky (Ricky Jay, Heartbreakers), and his young wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon, State and Main) -- decides to quit the business after a bank job goes sour. But the money man, Bergman (Danny DeVito), holds onto Joe's cut and won't let it go until he scores him one last heist, a job involving an airplane full of Swiss gold. Making matters worse, Bergman puts his nephew Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell, Charlie's Angels) on the case to make sure Moore doesn't run with the gold, and when Jimmy and Fran become closer than partners, distrust falls on the clan. Let the lies and the twists commence.

      With this setup, writer/director Mamet may have had a tribute to the stylish, character-driven Warner Brothers suspense thrillers of the 1930's and 1940's in mind, but he was off the mark from the very beginning. Even the classically-rendered Theodore Shapiro score that he placed in the soundtrack failed to develop the picture's mood beyond a typical Friday night video rental.

      Part of this fallowness may have been because the movie's individual scenes were not aptly developed in relation to the whole. For instance, it was disappointing that the film's opening shots had no relevance to the entire film -- the viewer is introduced to Joe Moore and he appears to be doing something for the camera's sake, but the viewer never gets a chance to go back to it. Mamet's longtime editor, Barbara Tulliver, could have easily left those establishing shots out and begun with film's first heist.

      Contrary to much of the film's tone, the first heist was clever and exciting to watch. With the twiddle of a finger, a snappy one-liner, and a makeshift bomb, a robbery is born -- and Mamet puts the viewer right in there to get an appreciation of the suspense of pulling off a bank heist.

      In a film's penultimate sequence (the airplane job), however, he chose to film the characters' preparation without any dialogue or soundtrack, preferring the simple ambient noise of objects being moved about the frame. It places a lot of focus on what the characters doing, which is interesting, but by breaking this simple convention it leaves the viewer ill at ease.

      Another muddled sequence came at the classic climactic moment, the almost-requisite shootout. While sixty or seventy years ago filmmakers were still learning the concepts of staging with lower budgets, they were nevertheless able to pull off exciting shootouts. By the present day, filmmakers should have the concept down, but in Heist, everyone involved was out of sync from the moment the guns started firing. With no establishing shot and the frantic pace at which individuals get shot, the expected suspenseful gunfight plays out as rushed and unorganized.

      In addition to directing the feature, Mamet also contributed his writing talents, an auteuristic style that few men in Hollywood can pull off reliably. Mamet is no different, the former playwright's writing easily exceeds his directorial skills. Heist, in particular, plays off his typically clever dialogue -- most of the lines come across well enough, by way of veteran acting talents like Hackman and Lindo.

      However, the numerous twists in the film get a bit excessive, and in fact, they start to become predictable after awhile. Mamet also failed to write in a strong opposition to Joe's crew, and it seems to be a clear-cut tale of jewel thief-versus-thief's boss. Mamet's overly complicated writing leaves little conflict, allowing the twists and turns to run rampant throughout the script.

      With dialogue-driven script, good actors need to deliver every time. Hackman, for the most part, held his own, and character actor Ricky Jay delivered his own wit and charm to the script to make Pinky an interesting character to follow. Opposite them, Danny DeVito did his usual shtick by playing the greedy slimeball, but he knows the role too well and is stooping well below his capabilities. But it is a lot of fun to see three of the Get Shorty clan (Hackman, DeVito, and Lindo) go at it again, even if they lack the chemistry they had in that picture.

      Overall, Heist is still interesting enough -- you'll want to hear the smart dialogue and watch the thieves work their magic. But it's not one of those classics you'll have lined up beside such features as The Public Enemy or Scarface -- Mamet's film is simply too ordinary.

Michael J. Eiff, 2001