T. and I thought we'd celebrate Thanksgiving by going to the movies last night. When we arrived at the theatre, we realized we didn't know what any of the movies were. Strangely, there were no posters, and no real advertisements, so we ended up piecing together what each of the movies were about in a haphazard way. We asked a group of stoned teenagers. This was their recommendation.
When chatting with them, we realized we knew exactly what movie this was. In fact, T. mentioned that he had been waiting for this movie for months. Who knew! I came in with no expectations, beyond the fact that this was a "heist film".
I was pleasantly shocked at how much I enjoyed this film. Ben Affleck was bang on, stealing my heart while still making me want to avoid him. I loved how "all in the family" this story was. Each of the crew members were tied to each other by family, sex, money and drugs. As a result, the individual actions or desires of one member are subject to the interpretation and punishment by the group.
For the bank manager, I thought that she was kind of sympathetic, but very quick to fall for Ben. The tatooed dream boat with an honest blue collar job, is a thrill for the "toonie" yuppie who otherwise spends all her free time helping the innocent and gardening for the community. The extremes between the idyllic woman and the criminal with a heart of gold were perhaps a little too extreme. If they developed her character a bit more, gave her something besides her "sunny days", I think she would have been more likeable.
I found the search for the water very moving. I felt completely caught up with her steps as she relived it. I can only imagine how the trauma of such an experience could affect a person longterm.
T. taught me about the "death by cop" suicide attempts of the various crew members, which I thought made sense. If you only have two options, life in a maximum security prison or death, I think I would make a last stand, too.
I found it did really validate the crew's actions and emphasize their humanity. That, mixed with an unsympathetic cop who also went home to "nuke his dinner" really disrupted the binary of good/evil which made the movie more interesting. The bad guys were "punished", but the system itself was put into question. I liked that.
Overall, I did find that the movie was too violent. I found it occasionally shocking, but that probably was mostly to do with the fact that the characters were relatively well developed before they were killed. This wasn't a random massacre, but a carefully executed game of cat and mouse by men on both sides of the law.
It was also interesting that they chose to throw in a sister/lover character to act as a foil to the bank manager. She was disregarded by Ben Affleck, but at the same time, they did make a point of showing the two of them having some kind of weird pity fuck earlier in the film.
I thought this was an interesting, fun and powerful film. Usually heist films have way less heart. Good job, Ben Affleck. I think we may need to consider expanding our repertoire to include more of your films.
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