Reviews for Moviethe Art of the Steal
There are a handful of actors working today whose mere presence justifies any picture show they are in. Kurt Russell is at the top of a very short listing for me, and has been then for decades. What a great career. What a niche he has carved out for himself. He brings something uniquely his own to everything he does. He is a sexy leading man, a comedic buffoon, a wonderful concrete actor, and a hell of a mimic (see his performances equally Elvis Presley and Herb Brooks). His last major role was the so-enjoyable-it-should-exist-illegal Stuntman Mike in Quentin Tarantino's 2007 "Death Proof," and that means it's been far also long since he's graced us with his presence. He is back, as the scarred and black-leather-clad "Crunch Calhoun", in Jonathan Sobol's fun and stylish art-heist flick "The Art of the Steal". Packed with great actors, some uproarious sequences, and a fast-moving, far-fletched plot, "The Fine art of the Steal" looks and feels like a crime thriller, but it's a one-act, and each role player has clicked into his respective function with a gusto and enjoyment that really makes the film.
Part fine art thief and part Evel Knievel, Crisis Calhoun is the leader of a merry band of international art forgers who have nicknames like "The Rolodex," "The Scratcher," "The Idea Man". Sobol freezes each fellow member of the team, rolling out their names and nicknames in large blocky text, creating a snarky larger-than-life environment in which these eccentrics tin can operate. There is Chris Diamantopoulos as Guy, the vivid French forger whose work can fifty-fifty ape proper carbon-dating, and who dreams of a notoriety as grand as "historic" forger Yves Chaudron. At that place is Kenneth Welsh equally Uncle Paddy, the randy Irishman who can find buyers for all the fakes produced past Guy, and finally, there is the hot-headed and sloppy Nicky, half-brother to Crunch, played by Matt Dillon, who comes upwardly with the idea for the grand "final score" on which they all could retire.
When the pic opens, Crisis has been released from a 5-and-a-1/2 year stint in a Warsaw prison, having been handed upwards by Nicky as the fall guy for an art heist gone wrong. He makes a paltry living past leaping his motorbike through rings of fire at car derbies all while wearing a white jumpsuit studded with blueish stars. He now has an apprentice named Francie (the terrific Jay Baruchel), a nice wife named Lola (Katheryn Winnick), and a hatred of the brother who betrayed him. He refuses to get involved in whatsoever new scheme. He's out, he'south done. And yet in his spare fourth dimension, he sits in his La-Z-Boy reading a book on keen art thefts, and lecturing Francie on how various Roman Emperors handled the problems of life. Crisis Calhoun clearly won't be able to stay straight for long.
The thieves are always being stopped at various borders (the picture show leaps around from Detroit to Quebec to Amsterdam, Paris and London), and a driven Interpol agent (Jason Jones) has partnered with an art-thief-turned informant (Terence Stamp) to try to nail down whatsoever information technology is the thieves are plotting. Terence Stamp plays his function in a mild-mannered abstracted way which highlights the frustrated machismo of the Interpol agent, who crushes cups of hot java in his bare hands, and so says, later the fact, "Ow." Postage stamp has a dreamy-eyed monologue well-nigh his experience going to the Victoria and Albert museum as a child, and seeing a cup made entirely of jade: "It made me wait at everything differently." The whole moving-picture show stops, surprisingly, beautifully, for his long monologue virtually what art ways to him. A bottom manager would have cut that monologue as an irrelevant time-waster. Simply Sobol (who also wrote the script) not only gives that monologue a not bad payoff most the end of the moving-picture show, but he also knows that the plot is non really "the thing" here, anyway. What is "the matter" is the performances, the actors, the shtick, the mood.
"The Fine art of the Steal" is filled with funny bits of farcical physical business, wisecracks, and an intensifying feeling of entrapment, causing the characters to race around like maniacs. The best of these is when a panicked Francie, who tin barely believe the level of crime he has entered into ("Interpol's a real thing??"), is roped into transporting two of the criminals across the Canadian border in the trunk of his car. He glues a long beard to his chin, and proceeds to behave in a totally suspicious way while being questioned by the edge patrol agent, finally babbling, "I'm in a play. Witness, the musical. With an assertion marker." Silliness similar that keeps "The Art of the Steal" afloat. I wish more than films felt permission to be equally silly as this i is. Everyone is great. Anybody looks like they are having a blast. The right mood is set early on, insouciant, self-aware, and cool.
As the motion-picture show moves into its third deed, where, traditionally, plot with a majuscule P takes over, "The Art of the Steal" knows that what interests us is these characters, these actors, their behavior, their interactions. The plot is certainly given its due, and the heist that unfolds is gorgeously complex and insane. But information technology's wonderful to see a genre flick keeping its strong interest in character, rather than plot, right upward until the satisfying last frame. Kurt Russell could read the phone book and I'd pay to encounter it. It's great to have him back. "The Fine art of the Steal" is only 90 minutes long, and never takes itself too seriously, or seriously at all. The film feels light, simply that is not a criticism, at least not in the case of "Art of the Steal". Information technology's why the motion-picture show works.
Sheila O'Malley
Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Plan. Read her answers to our Flick Dear Questionnaire here.
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The Art of the Steal (2014)
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