All those who told director Neil Jordan to make a movie about a retired thief coming back for one last score should be rounded up and collectively slapped. In case you missed “The Score,” “The Heist” or any of the other 10,000 films with this plot, Jordan is giving us the chance to see it again with “The Good Thief.”
Because the film has been made many, many times before, the picture is predictable and inches forward at the pace of a slow crawl. It’s dull, drab and nearly unwatchable.
In fact, the film’s sole saving grace comes from a most unlikely source – the oft-disheveled Nick Nolte. He’s almost enough to make “The Good Thief” worth the price of admission – almost.
In this remake of the 1955 French film “Bob le flambeur,” Nolte plays American Bob Montagnet, a drug addict living in the back streets of Paris, who is reviving his criminal racket in order to lift a collection of paintings from a posh new casino. He is even returning to the game with a few new elements in tow – Anne (Nutsa Kukhianidze), a teenager he rescues from a French pimp, and a serious case of heroin withdrawal.
Why Jordan, known for pushing the envelope with offbeat fare like “The Crying Game,” would do such an unimaginative movie is puzzling. Typically, he has a respect for his audiences, as he presents three-dimensional worlds with beautiful shots and engaging stories. Such is not the case with “The Good Thief.”
Instead, this new picture is bogged down with obvious gimmicks and hackneyed characters. Jordan’s cast of misfits seems as though it could be dynamic upon first entering the film, but he lets the characters slip into what are background roles at best. (And how he could easily make a too- buff transsexual seem boring is beyond me.)
Luckily, Nolte comes to his rescue. Having appeared in a wide variety of roles – ranging from a Bobby Knight-like basketball coach to a necrophiliac detective – a role so overdone should be a bore to watch. Nolte transforms Bob into the lively character that carries this whole film.
The subtle wit of Bob is easy to overlook, though, as it takes a moment to get past the striking juxtaposition between Nolte in his now infamous mug shot and his role in “The Good Thief,” and the film could be written off as just another heist film. In this highly cinematic version of Paris, Bob has a realistic charm that just makes the character hard to dislike.
Ultimately Bob isn’t enough to overcome the lack of a plot and carry the entire film, and anyone looking forward to a night at the Drexel this weekend is bound to get more bang for their buck with a screening of “Bend it Like Beckham” or “Nowhere in Africa” – both vastly superior to this disjointed Jordan effort.
