Liam Neeson stars as a bank robber who prides himself on precision and skill. He stops his thieving ways once he meets the girl of his dreams (Kate Walsh). He prepares to confess to his crimes and turn the money over to the Feds (he never spent a dime of the loot), in hopes of a reduced sentence so he can enter into a new chapter of his life with a clean conscience. However, things go south when the dirty Fed (Jai Courtney) tries to take the money for himself. There’s a scuffle, another agent winds up dead, and naturally, he puts the blame on Neeson. Now, Neeson must go on the lam and clear his name before the Feds (both the crooked ones and the guys who are on the up-and-up) take him down.
Honest Thief was one of those movies that played to empty theaters in the midst of the pandemic. As much as I wanted to see it, I opted to wait and catch it at home. Fortunately, it plays a lot better on the small screen than it probably did in an empty movie theater.
I appreciated the fact that the pacing was deliberate, though self-assured. The plot unfolds like a good novel, and part of the fun is seeing how, despite Neeson’s best intentions, things snowball on him and he gets deeper and deeper into trouble. It’s a good moral dilemma. He’s just trying to do the right thing. However, he’s turned down by the Feds who thinks he’s just a crackpot. Once he finally gets someone to listen, they wind up being a murderous thief. I think we’ve all been at a moment in our lives when we try to come clean about something and it winds up blowing up in our faces, only making things much worse. It’s kind of like that here. Sometimes, honesty is not the best policy. Or maybe, honesty IS the best policy, but you just have to go through a whole lot of shit to get out from under the truth.
Walsh and Neeson are a good team. They have enormous amounts of chemistry together, which makes them feel like a believable couple. You truly believe Neeson’s need to confess comes from his love for her, and it’s not just a gratuitous machination of the plot (as is the case would be with so many other thrillers). Courtney does a fine job as the single-minded agent willing to do anything to get his hands on the loot. Robert Patrick also lends a touch of class to the proceedings as the unbelieving agent who winds up dead. It’s Jeffrey Donovan who steals the movie as Patrick’s partner. His character just got out of a messy divorce and wound up winning his wife's dog in the divorce settlement. That means he brings the cute pooch along with him everywhere he goes. It’s quirky touches like this that make Honest Thief sprier and more memorable than your average crime flick.
The only real eye-rolls come from Neeson’s nickname, “The In and Out Bandit”. It’s mostly there for a cheap laugh and the filmmakers run the thin joke into the ground early on. It’s a small consolation that Neeson’s character seems to hate it as much as anyone.
Like the main character, Honest Thief is precise, efficient, and reliable. There’s nothing flashy about it, but it gets the job done. Some may feel let down by the climax, which is a little low on action. I for one thought it was a refreshing change of pace as it requires the hero to outthink his adversary and not outgun him. There’s something to be said for that.
AKA: The Good Criminal.
No comments:
Post a Comment