Mixed tape movies - Thick as thieves

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like a mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and most definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.

Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: Thieves.

Thieves. Everybody likes a good crime caper movie once in a while. Preferably with a happy ending.  And Hollywood has kindly provided us with numerous ingenious scenarios in which crime pays. I’ll focus on the more lighthearted crime movies here. So I’ll leave Joe Pesci swinging a baseball bat at Robert de Niro for another time (yes – I made an intentional mistake here).

08:00-10:00

Three fugitives: A great remake that –to me- is even better than the French original. I especially liked the scene in which Martin Short rescues his daughter from the orphanage. This bumbling buffoon of a character regularly stumbles over his own shoelaces. But when his daughter is in danger he suddenly becomes frighteningly focused. A nice little additional layer to his character. Oh and the three main leads have great chemistry together.

10:00-12:00

Ruthless People: One of my favorite quotes is in this one: “This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.”

The story is what you can expect from a crime-comedy. You take a crime (any crime) and turn it on its head. So like Weekend at Bernie's –where the hitman keeps on killing Bernie; thinking he’s alive. In Ruthless People; Danny DeVito -as the husband of a kidnapped Bette Midler -refuses to pay the ransom, hoping that the kidnappers will in fact kill his wife. A slightly dark comedy but hilariously executed.

12:00-14:00

Disorganized Crime: A professional bank robber calls a group of professionals together to do a job. But, unfortunately, this mastermind gets arrested before the boys arrive. When they do they have to try to work together and rob a bank. It might not be riddled with jokes but the charm of the characters and the fun story makes it one of my all time favorite movies.

14:00-16:00

The thief who came to dinner: A computer engineer (in the 70s mind you) decides to throw his life in a different direction and becomes the ‘chess playing burglar’. Naturally the papers notice and they come up with a competition  between the burglar and a chess genius. If the genius wins the burglar is to give himself up.

This is just a small part of a fun movie wherein the main hero is the crook. It might be a bit outdated by today’s standards (why doesn’t he use gloves?). But it’s the fun and the charm of the chase that’s at the core of this movie.

16:00-18:00

Quick Change: Again a remake of a French movie (What’s up with the French and bank robberies?). I was very young when I first saw this movie and I thought –and still think- that the main plan was brilliant. The getaway-plan however, not so much.

It’s almost like crime in real life – stealing a million bucks can be easy but how do you launder it?

18:00-20:00

How to steal a million: Which brings me to this movie. How does one steal a million? A smart plan set in motion in the last act. Great chemistry between Hepburn and O’Tool (I think he was sober in this one). An overall classic crime caper movie.

20:00-22:00

The real McCoy: Hollywood’s attempt at bringing girl-power to the heist movies. And I must say Kim Basinger fares quite well as the ‘former thief forced to do one last job’. The movie ticks all the boxes but that doesn’t take away any of the fun.

It is fun to mention that one of the main reasons people remember this movie is because of Terence Stamp’s hardcore-don’t-mess-with-me villain role. The kind of guy that keeps tigers as pets. The next role he took on after this? Playing a sweetheart transgender in Pricilla: Queen of the desert.

22:00-00:00

Topkapi: The big one had to be on the list. I still think that Mission Impossible’s take on the whole caper scene can’t hold a candle to this original (though Rififi should be mentioned here). Every actor is great in this (Ustinov won his Oscar). And, though some people disagree, I still feel that Melina Mercouri’s character is one of the strongest female protagonists ever to grace the silver screen.

00:00-02:00

Who is Cletis Tout?: A crime movie made for movie buffs. Count me in!
A guy gets captured by a hit-man who loves classic movies. To talk his way out of it he tells a crime story, with some romance and danger and, of course, a classic fourth act. If you like crime capers it’s a great movie. If you know your American cinema from the 50s it’s a fantastic movie.

02:00-04:00

Snatch: The Stratham is great as an action star, but he is even better as a fast-talking conman. This movie is Guy Ritchie at his best. The movie is fast moving, has interesting characters and a plot that conects all the dots nicely in the end.
I originally wanted to put the Dutch movie Black Out on this spot. But since Black Out owes so much to this classic…

Watch it for Del Toro’s Yiddish, Pitt’s Gibberish and Sherbedgia’s famous final words “Not yet!”.

Honorable mentions:

There are of course many other movies to mention here. Maybe I’ll do a sequel in due time.

The diamond fleece: A great crime caper (with some annoying rap half-way through). It's a fun movie with a twist/reveal that I actually didn’t see coming first time through (usually I’m rather good at those things).

Black Out: The Dutch Snatch. It’s hardcore and awesomely over the top –something the Dutch are actually rather good at. Two examples:  1. Two beautiful sister hit-girls swinging an axe and a cricket bat. 2. Just one quote of many: “You should stop sucking d*ck, you’re talking bollocks!”. No this isn’t a PG movie. 

Grand Slam: Both a classic crime movie and a movie with a final twist. This twist has been copied so often during the years that it’s hardly original anymore. But in Grand Slam -in its original form- the twist still works.

The league of Gentlemen: This movie is a lot like Topkapi in a way. That’s why I left it out. But it’s a great crime movie, no doubt.

The first great train robbery: A brilliant movie with a great soundtrack. But halfway through the movie makes two big mistakes at once. Not only does it take a massive departure from a lighthearted tone to dark and sinister. But it also drops a character in out of nowhere.

The Italian job: Avoid the remake. It has a hilarious ending.

Foolproof: Ryan Reynolds being all charming and David Suchet (Yes Mr. Poirot himself!) being a dastardly villain. The final twist is a bit too obvious – but that doesn’t take away any of the fun.

The art of the steal: A movie that deserves more attention than I’m currently giving it. It has Kurt Russell and Terence Stamp (again!) in it stealing a priceless book. Not very original perhaps but, in a classic sense, the way a crime caper comedy should be made.