Thick as Thieves [2009]

May 21, 2009

If you’re looking for one of those commercial movies that are simplistic yet strangely relaxing, look no more! Thick as Thieves has everything you need: generic and mildly predictable story, a famous cast, and medium pacing. Of course, the cherry on the top is the heist itself. Some of us are still suckers for good heist movies, regardless of their quality. And you already know how they made this movie. They had some generic script about old guys stealing some shit and everything they needed now was some seasoned actors.

Queue Morgan, Antonio, Robert, and Rade as the wrecking crew. Along with Tom Hardy and Radha Mitchell, all of them were quite mediocre, very far from their best performances. However, this is exactly what the movie needed. Thick as Thieves is one of those fire-and-forget flicks that can pad your hangover Sunday days. To be honest, there are a couple of twists and turns, but they were all in the realm of predictable outcomes.

After all of this, I should also say that the pacing is quite good along with production values. And the action scenes are surprisingly good and kinetic. Some of that comes from snappy editing and some of it from the vision Mimi Leder had. She was behind some pretty solid movies like Deep Impact and The Peacemaker. Unfortunately, much of the $25 million budget went to the big names leaving Thick as Thieves in halls of mediocrity.

Keith Ripley has been stealing stuff his whole life. A career criminal always has that one last job that pays insanely well but that’s extremely difficult to pull off. This is where Gabriel Martin, a younger thief steps in as the replacement for Keith’s last partner, who was killed by the Russian mafia. He owns them a lot of money and to pay off all that debt he would have to steal something insanely valuable. Something like Fabergé eggs, currently kept in the Russian Museum.

The final job, fuck me, how many times have I heard that shit. I distinctly remember just that concept irritating me throughout Heist [2001]. However, that was arguably a much better movie based on a David Mamet script. Theoretically, there are a couple of ways you can find this movie enjoyable. I already mentioned the whole hangover aspect along with the heist gimmick, but what if I told you that you can have just as much fun trashing the story and acting?

You can guess who’s going to turn on who and where the story is actually going. And if you’re good and experienced enough, you’ll be able to see twists coming from a mile away. So, if you have nothing better to do and you’re a fan of heist movies, I guess Thick as Thieves AKA The Code is a good choice.