Rhapsodies

This week my selection was based on the career of that master criminal, Robert De Niro… Okay, you found me out I was watching heist films starring Robert De Niro as a master criminal. 

The first film on my list, Frank Oz’s, The Score features De Niro as Nick Wells a Montreal Nightclub owner by night and safecracker by… okay also by night… The metaphor doesn’t work as well as I’d like. 

Anyway, Nick is a career burglar and safecracker who, after twenty plus years in the business, and nearly getting caught in his last job, wants out. His fence, Max (Marlon Brando) has a job to steal a priceless French golden scepter from the most impregnable building in Montreal. His inside man, the arrogant but extremely competent Jack Teller(Edward Norton) has a difficult but surefire plan. It’s an offer that Nick can’t refuse, since it will let him get out of the job debt free. But with the stakes involved who can you trust?

I really liked this film. In my ongoing Art vs Craft argument regarding film, Oz is one of the directors I put on the craft side of my argument. (No insult, mind you, his craft rocks) On another note, he’s a director mostly associated with comedy and this is the first drama I’ve seen him do. For the most part, I think he pulled it off very well. 

Along with Oz’s directing chops you have three generations of great actors in Brando, De Niro, and Norton. All three are at the top of their game. I was especially impressed when I found out most of the great dialogue came from Oz allowing them to improvise. 

The next film on my list, Micheal Mann’s Heat, features De Niro as Neil McCauley the leader of a hardcore crew of professional criminals. Neil is a consummate but ruthless professional who’s first and only rule is “in your life that you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.”  After their last heist ended in the murder of three bank guards, they become the target of LAPD Major Crimes Unit Lieutenant Vincent Hanna  (Al Pacino) In a string of cat and mouse games who will win?

Sometimes when I’m watching these films I think of how these films, in hindsight, would have gone much better with a different film as a double feature… In this case, I think Heat would have gone perfectly with the Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Both of these films focus on the almost dualistic nature of the hunter versus the hunted and how each is a skewed reflection of the other. 

This is another film where everyone is on the top of their game. Obviously, De Niro and Pacino are at the top of their game, but the rest of the cast are at the top of their game, with special points for Val Kilmer as DeNiro’s competent but immature second in command. 

The action scenes are wonderfully choreographed with brutal realism. In fact, if I have any problem with this film, it’s that it’s juggling too many plots to fit in the film’s three-hour time frame. 

But still, that’s like complaining that the problem with Mozart’s music is there are too many notes, right?