The Italian Job. Ocean’s Eleven. Rififi. Milano Calibro 9, Mona Lisa, The Asphalt Jungle, Le Cercle Rouge, Blues Brothers, Machine Gun McCain… The “fresh out of prison” setup may seem like an overused trope, especially for crime and heist films, but it’s prevailed through the decades for a reason. Coming out of the penal system, a man doesn’t necessarily have a lot of options. The world seems to have moved on. Relationships have changed. Legitimate work is hard to come by, since nobody wants to hire a convict. It’s easy to see why someone might slink back into unlawful habits.
Fresh out of a 7 year stint (5½ with good behavior) in a Polish prison, wheelman Crunch Calhoun (Kurt Russell) has no love for the guy who ratted and got him there — his own half-brother Nicky (Matt Dillon). Along with their crew made up of master forger Guy de Cornet (Chris Diamantopoulos) and connection man Paddy McCarthy (Kenneth Welsh), they were pulling off an art-switch heist when things went sour and Nicky ended up in police custody, where he offered up Crunch to save his own skin.
After making his way back into the world, Crunch finds work as a stunt biker and manages to make a couple younger friends. He takes Francie (Jay Baruchel) under his wing as an apprentice and romances young, gorgeous, resourceful girlfriend Lola (Katheryn Winnick), who is either his best asset or greatest weakness. He’s depressed that life seems to have passed him by, but seems content to eke out a living and try to stay out of trouble.
Of course, he’ll get an offer he can’t refuse to get the old gang back together — along with his new friends — for one last job, and that’s where the fun starts. What seems to be a pretty straightforward smuggling job becomes more and more convoluted as the gang decides to use the setup to pull an even more elaborate scam with exponentially higher stakes: the one they’ll be remembered for.
The movie has a definite comedic bent. Russell is appropriately sarcastic, as is Jay Baruchel, who has grown on me over the years. He’s been a bit pigeonholed playing dorky losers, but I’m glad to see him branching out — this is a great role for him, apparently channeling Mike Ness as he alternates between legitimately cool and comically acerbic. The funniest stuff, though, comes from the odd-coupled Interpol agent and informant who track the gang. Terence Stamp plays an incarcerated art thief who grudgingly aids bumbling, self-important Agent Bick (Jason Jones) in exchange for his own parole, but wastes no chance to belittle him with eloquently trollish quips and insults.
The Art Of The Steal brings plenty of style to the table, starting with the animated titles and continuing to sport the flashy editing, hip swagger, and zoomy motion graphics and animated flourishes that might accompany a Guy Richie or Oceans film. It fits well, considering that film’s “twists and turns” plotting. Particularly noteworthy is a story sequence in which Guy tells the crew the story of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911. As he narrates, the story unfolds on screen in flickery monochrome faux-silent-era presentation with the main film’s actors playing parallel roles — and clearly having a great time doing it. It’s a fun sequence and even gets a short “making of” featurette on the Blu-Ray’s special features. More subtly, but critically important, is that the entire film is shot traditionally (i.e., “correctly”) with dollies, tracks, and tripods — no shaky handheld crap. It helps give a classic, professional vibe, further separating it from the cheapie-indie DTV pack.
THE PACKAGE
The Art Of The Steal comes to Blu-Ray from Anchor Bay/Starz. The disc includes English and Spanish subtitles and is rated R for language and sexual references.
Special Features
Doing The Crime: Making The Art Of The Steal (29:36)
This half hour documentary actually offers little in the way of on-set footage or technical information which I would typically consider “making of” material. With plenty of cast input in addition to director Jonathan Sobol, this interview-based featurette focuses instead on the film’s style, script, and acting.
The Making Of “The Theft Of The Mona Lisa” (5:03)
This five minute extra uses animation to demonstrate the creation of the green-screen-heavy compositions which were used create the memorable “silent film” style flashback scene.
Audio Commentary with Director Jonathan Sobol and Producer Nicholas Tabarrok
The commentary provides much more “making of” info than the Doing The Crime featurette does, including a few neat surprises and BTS stories.
Put simply, this is a good Blu-Ray release of a fun movie that seems to be flying a bit under the radar.
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon:
The Art Of The Steal — [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Amazon Video]