Lying and Stealing: Another Art History Major Gone Wrong

Parents do not let your children major in art history. If you believe what we see in movies, that degree only prepares students for one career: art thief. Of course, if they are successful, they will do quite nicely for themselves. Unfortunately, Ivan (the not-so-terrible) Warding is not in business for himself. He has been scoring hot objects d’art to pay off his late ne’er do well father’s gambling debts. However, he might be able to clear the books with two big scores, but he will need the help of a mystery woman to finish the job, because that is how capers work, especially in Matt Aselton’s Lying and Stealing, which opens this Friday in New York.

Warding loves to quote Willie Sutton, but he prefers to rob from silly rich art collectors. Since banks are Federally insured—that means by us taxpayers—we do not object to his strategy. As [bad] luck would have, moving stolen art on the grey market happens to be one of the other major ventures of Dimitri Maropakis, the bookie holding all the senior Warding’s IOUs. Ivan has been doing this for a while, so he expects to be Even-Steven soon. Of course, Maropakis is not exactly trust-worthy, but he offers the thief a deal. The first job is stealing a Hitler self-portrait from a twitchy and well-armed National Socialism memorabilia collector. The second job will be named later.

To further complicate Warding’s life, he is forced to take in his bipolar but smarter-than-he-looks brother Raymond, who has just been evicted from his halfway house. The FBI agent parked outside his apartment, Lyman Wilkers, is not helping much either. However, there is Elyse Tibladi, an attractive struggling actress and con artist, whom he keeps crossing paths with.

Theo James and Emily Ratajkowski are not exactly Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn in How to Steal a Million, but they have serviceable chemistry. James deserves particular credit for some solid comic timing and a rather decent leading man presence, exceeding viewer expectations quite a bit. Fred Melamed provides a memorable villain, chewing the scenery with flamboyant élan, as the hedonistic Maropakis. Isiah Whitlock Jr. also adds some welcome dry sarcasm as Wilkers.

L&S is a modest film, but it hums along at a healthy clip and manages to punch above its weight class. (Still, it should be noted the film is probably a tad more violent than it really should have been.) Likeably entertaining but nothing transcendent, Lying and Stealing opens this Friday (7/12) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Welcome Home: Not Worth the Effort

It’s like 14 Cameras set in Umbria, but at least it comes with a better class of stalker-voyeurs. Cassie Ryerson and Bryan Palmer can’t decide whether they love or hate each other, so they will make-up their minds during a super-awkward Italian vacation, while the creepy Federico watches through spy cameras. However, he departs from his standard practices when he decides to take an active role in their drama in Welcome Home (trailer here), which is now playing in Brooklyn (just barely).

“Welcome Home” is the name of the up-scale Airbnb-like service on which this luxurious converted monastery was offered at a suspiciously low price. Like your mother used to say, if something is too good to be true, it must be a case of state-of-the-art voyeurism. Frankly, “Welcome Home” isn’t a good name for the online share site. “Be Our Guest” would make more sense, but maybe then Disney would have sued them back to the Etruscan age.

Be that as it may, things are bad between Ryerson and Palmer. On the night of a drunken office party, he caught her cheating on him with a sleazy co-worker. He had already been experiencing performance issues before that (TMI). Ever since, it has been like frozen tundra between them. Federico is not here to help. To be honest, he sort of really saves her when she twists an ankle on her morning jog, but he keeps coming around. Of course, Palmer immediately picks up on his bad vibes, but Ryerson just thinks he is jealous, which he is.

Lucky for Federico, the couple is drinking heavily and barely communicating, so it is rather easy for him to sow further dissension between them. Naturally, neither can speak Italian either. Plus, they are dumber than a bag full of hammers. Break up, stay together—whichever, just don’t have kids.

The Medieval vacation home really is a fab pad and the surrounding Umbria landscape is quite lovely, but, alas, the combination of Aaron Paul and Emily Ratajkowski is not about to make anyone forget Tracy & Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. On the other hand, Ricardo Scamarcio (Fosco in the latest Woman in White) clearly enjoys the villainous gamesmanship and generally gorging on the scenery.

This is the sort of film that lags days and weeks behind viewer intuition. Ratliff had no trouble lecturing viewers with films like Salvation Boulevard and the documentary Hell House, but apparently either thrilling or scaring them is beyond his reach. This is a dumb, flat film that isn’t worth the effort it would take to find it in theaters or the 93 minutes it takes to watch it via VOD. Not recommended, Welcome Home is now screening (once a night) at the Kent Theatre in Brooklyn (according to Google, but Fandango won’t give it the time of day).