King of Thieves: Michael Caine Recruits the Old Gang

They were like a real-life Going in Style, but these retirement aged crooks had sharper elbows. They also pulled off what is considered the biggest heist job in British history. This is the third film version of the unlikely Hatton Garden caper, but the first to reach our shores in any noticeable way. Crime does not pay, not even for seniors, but at least it provides a way to pass the time in James Marsh’s King of Thieves, which releases today on DVD.

Brian Reader didn’t exactly go straight, but he got out of the game relatively on top. Out of his past “known associates,” John “Kenny” Collins is somewhat comfortable, but Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Carl Wood are largely scuffling. When “Basil,” a socially awkward security specialist comes to Reader with a potentially lucrative score (a safety deposit company catering to gem merchants), he has no trouble recruiting his old accomplices. The question is whether the recently bereaved Reader’s heart is really in it. Just try doing him dirty and see what happens.

Details of the Hatton Garden heist are still coming to light, even at this late date. Regardless, the Rififi-esque caper business is pretty entertaining, but Joe Penhall’s screenplay focuses more on the subsequent double-crosses.

Of course, the whole point of King is watching Sir Michael Caine do his thing as Reader. He has been stealing jewels in films since before you were born, so show some respect. He’s Michael Bloomin’ Caine and he is terrific as Reader. When he gets hacked off, all that old magic comes back with a vengeance.

As usual, Ray Winstone is as compulsively watchable as ever as the brawler, Jones, while Jim Broadbent takes advantage of the opportunity to finally chew some scenery as the goonish Perkins. Tom Courtenay plays Collins as a bit of a silly duffer, but it is just embarrassing to see Michael Gambon stuck as the butt of jokes as Billy “The Fish” Lincoln, the incontinent fence. Still, there is Caine and Winstone.

Clearly, nobody better understands the appeal of this greybeard A-Team than Marsh because he openly invites nostalgia by incorporating clips from their classic street-smart swinging sixties films, most especially the original Italian Job. British pop-jazz vocalist Jamie Cullum also maintains the cool retro vibe with his groovy, brassy cover of The Killers’ “The Man.”

Harry Brown is still probably the ultimate Michael Caine film, but it is great to see him strut his way through a capery lark, more or less in the tradition of Italian Job and Silver Bears. Recommended for fans of heist movies and the accomplished cast, King of Thieves releases today (3/26) on DVD and BluRay.

Shadow Dancer: The Informer 2.0

They say peace finally came to Northern Ireland when both sides lost their appetite for killing.  Collette McVeigh’s family has not reached that point yet.  This makes her a potentially valuable source of information in James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Young Collette was supposed to buy her father a pack of cigarettes, but she sent her brother instead.  The bullet that cut short his life would send her down the path of violent terrorism.  Even with a child to raise McVeigh stays active in the cause.  However, her latest mission is an unqualified disaster.  Her bomb fails to detonate, which is somewhat fortunate since she is also pinched by MI-5.  Her interrogator, Mac, has a rather awkward talk prepared for her.  That bullet that killed her brother?  Not British.  More to the point, if she ever wants to see her son again, McVeigh must start informing on her high ranking IRA brothers.

Kind of sort of agreeing, McVeigh stalls for time, but Mac forces her to commit.  Soon McVeigh navigates the perils of a double life, but her handler looks out for her interests as best he can.  Mac is old school.  He believes in protecting assets, so he is troubled by the actions of his superior, Kate Fletcher, who seems rather callously disinterested in McVeigh’s safety.

Shadow is bit of a slow starter, but it is a strong closer.  Largely (but not completely) de-politicized by Marsh, the film speaks more directly to the mindset of Eric Hoffer’s “true believer” rather than the particularly grievances of the Troubles.  Neither side exclusively represents the heroes or the villains.  Some individuals are simply more reasonable than others.  For instance, McVeigh’s brothers illustrate fanaticism at its worst, while Fletcher personifies Machiavellianism at its most cold blooded.

Marsh is a world class filmmaker, who seems to have a knack for gritty noir material, such as the middle (and best) film of the Red Riding trilogy.  In his hands, Shadow Dancer is as much a classical tragedy as it is a thriller.  McVeigh and Mac are both pawns trying to assert themselves in a fatally deterministic world.  In fact, the film’s pessimism is what really lingers with viewers.  Clearly, the terrorist mindset will always opt for blood over an honorable peace.  American audiences will also wonder if the aptness of McVeigh’s name was coincidental or intentional.

Clive Owen is fantastic as Mac, balancing his ruthlessness and humanity on a razor’s edge.  Likewise, Andrea Riseborough’s McVeigh looks like a stress fracture about to happen.  Red is definitely her color, but it is still a bit hard to see her as a potential temptress, which makes the evolution of her relationship with her handler somewhat problematic.  While she is not exactly a multidimensional character, as Fletcher, Gillian Anderson also gives an ice queen performance worthy of Kristin Scott Thomas.

Marsh meticulously sets the scene and methodically escalates the tension.  Adapting his own novel, screenwriter Tom Bradby fully establishes the sad internal logic of the late Troubles era.  Admirably free of sentimentality, Shadow Dancer mostly plays it straight (while not entirely reining-in a lingering bias against MI-5 and the police charged with maintaining public safety).  Worth seeing as a result, it opens this Friday (5/31) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Marsh’s Project Nim

Chimpanzees are animals and people are stupid. Nim’s story will illustrate both points. He was a chimp raised as human in hopes of fostering direct species-to-species communication by teaching him sign language during his formative years. Yet, what is a self-absorbed academic to do with a chimp that thinks he is human once the experiment ends? That is indeed the tricky part of James Marsh’s Project Nim, a documentary profile of Columbia’s most famous chimp, which opens this Friday in New York.

At first, Nim was placed with a hippie foster mother who raised Nim along with her children. Unfortunately, she became possessive of Nim, deliberately sabotaging the research in order to keep him to herself. The fact that Nim increasingly ran amok through her home was of no never mind. Eventually, the project manager, Prof. Herbert Terrace, stepped in, removing Nim from her care.

Appropriating a large Riverdale (for non-New Yorkers, this is the nice section of the Bronx) estate owned by Columbia University, Terrace set up Nim and his keepers in style. During what were certainly Nim’s salad days, the chimp picked up a 120 word vocabulary, considerably more than most MSNBC on-air commentators. Though more stable, it was still a problematic environment, where the phrase “getting the chimp stoned” would not have been used as a euphemism. Nim’s rough-housing was also getting rougher. It was not his fault, it was just his nature. Not getting the results he hoped for, Terrace finally up and cancelled the program, leaving Nim in the custody of Dr. James Mahoney of NYU’s LEMSLIP, a chimp medical research facility. This would not be the end of Nim’s road though.

While animal rights undeniably lie at Project’s heart, the film does not let anyone off the hook, casting a jaundiced eye on the permissive academic climate and indulgent hippy lifestyle of the 1970’s. It also more than implies Terrace took advantage of his position, with respect to the female graduate students he supervised. It even presents ostensive animal rescuer Cleveland Amory as something of an irresponsible poser.

Ironically, Dr. Mahoney turns out one of the good guys in Project, despite the amusing Darth Vader introduction Marsh gives him. As a result, Project seems like it is shooting much straighter than the vast majority of documentaries filing in and out of theaters these days. Though Marsh definitely brings a keen cinematic style to bear on the material, it still feels disappointingly conventional when compared to the electrifying genre defiance of Man on Wire, which should already be acknowledged as a modern classic (an admittedly high bar to clear on a regular basis).

Indeed, Marsh is a great filmmaker who also shows first class narrative chops in the best installment of the Red Riding trilogy. However, his strategy of focusing so squarely on Nim as his POV character will largely shape viewers’ responses. If you left your heart in the primate house, Project is the film for you, but more cerebral audiences will be frustrated when the film only skims the surface of its larger epistemological questions. A good, solid, but not quite great documentary, Project Nim opens this Friday (7/8) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.