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Heist (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:125
Fresh:82
Rotten:43
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Heist didn't cover any new ground, but the cast and Mamet's expertise with witty banter make it worthwhile.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Written and directed by David Mamet, HEIST is a crime thriller that follows aging master thief Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) as he plans one last robbery before literally sailing off into the sunset.... Written and directed by David Mamet, HEIST is a crime thriller that follows aging master thief Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) as he plans one last robbery before literally sailing off into the sunset. What seems like the perfect heist gets complicated, however, when Joe's "business" partner, Bergman (Danny DeVito), insists that his shifty nephew, Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), join the crew--consisting of Joe's young wife, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon), and longtime associates Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo) and Don "Pinky" Pincus (Ricky Jay). A tense battle of wits and wills ensues, leading to plenty of twists and turns before the grand finale. HEIST works wonderfully as a fast-paced, slight-of-hand caper flick. By focusing on dialogue over violence, Mamet allows his excellent script and remarkable cast to shine. Hackman (who seems incapable of giving a bad performance) and Lindo are particularly outstanding and carry the film as deftly as their characters plot their crime. Although the one-last-robbery tale has been told hundreds of times before, it's rarely been told better than this. [More]
Starring: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay
Starring: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Patti LuPone
Director: David Mamet
Director: David Mamet
Screenwriter: David Mamet
Producer: Art Linson, Andrew Stevens, Elie Samaha
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Heist
Heist is not so much a fleshed-out cinematic experience as a shallow exercise in con games.
David Mamet's films regurgitate every clever quip he's collected on bar napkins throughout the years.
Mamet the writer should have thrown his script over to an action pro, like John Frankenheimer, to protect him from himself.
The slick-but-skin-deep Heist is little more than an engagingly empty exercise.
A no-frills, ice-cold, dead-serious caper flick in the classic tradition.
Solidly entertaining and surprisingly free of the Mamet-isms that can suck the life right out of the most tightly crafted story.
Nothing tremendous but certainly entertaining in its own right and for what it's trying to be and do.
Once you pull away its layers and discount the occasional running, jumping and gunplay, is simply more of the same.
Thanks to the writing and story structure, Heist is more satisfying as a character study.
It's less plot-driven than The Score but is more satisfying because of what Mamet leaves out.
A caper movie covered in the profane icing of Mametian dialogue but stuffed with tedious Mametian plot wrinkles.
David Mamet drives us crazy with a characteristically convoluted caper film that's a lot more about attitude and sleight of hand than it is about action. Mischievous, but you really have to go with the flow.
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