avoids sentimentalizing or glamorizing the material, keeping it dry and always with an ironic edge
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11/08/01
Heist (2001)
66
%
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.... [More]
Starring: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay
Director: David Mamet
Reviews for Heist
Unlike The Score, which tested viewers' patience until the climactic robbery with self-indulgent dramatics and cardboard dialogue, Heist has you in its grip from the get-go.
11/08/01
A whirl of action going nowhere fast.
11/08/01
Betrayal only works if we care who ends up with whom, and Mamet fails to interest the audience in anything outside the macho banter.
11/08/01
What Heist lacks in novelty it makes up for in solid entertainment.
11/08/01
Top CriticHeist is Mamet's biggest and most accessible thriller to date, and if you've never seen any of his films, the movie will work its devilish magic. But for the initiated, Heist carries a whiff of disappointment.
11/08/01
Not as cool as The Score, but still decent grown-up fun.
11/08/01
The problem, is the plot, this has been done before and it seems tired, but hey, this is Mamet we're talking about and if anyone can redeem a mediocre plot, he can ... and he does.
11/08/01
Heist lacks the smugness of Mr. Mamet's State and Main but never reaches the wit-quota of his The Spanish Prisoner and Wag the Dog. Even if it's not memorable Mamet, it's a largely intriguing movie.
11/08/01
So it's not original. But Heist gets its snap and crackle from the precise language.
11/08/01
The Score got away clean, without resorting to violence. Heist isn’t so lucky. This house of cards goes down in a hail of bullets.
11/08/01
Does narrative cartwheels in a futile effort to outwit us....you'll probably emerge from the theatre thinking you're the one who's been robbed.
11/08/01
Not awful but nowhere near as good as it should have been.
11/08/01
Mamet directs Heist, with excellent pacing, stylized camera work and high-charged dialogue.
11/08/01
Smart cinema, with a storyline that holds together and dialogue that stimulates your intellect like other movies’ car chases stimulate your adrenal gland.
11/08/01
While Heist doesn’t exactly rank alongside classics like House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner, it certainly has a beat that you can dance to.
11/08/01
Mamet can be an engaging cinematic con artist, but it's a lot more enjoyable to watch him making his money the old fashioned way: earning it.
11/07/01
A smartly written crime caper.
11/07/01
An exhilaratingly tense thriller that benefits from an elaborate array of rapid-fire twists and the sharp, delicious, cadence of David Mamet dialogue.
11/07/01
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