Film Screening 22nd July, 2002

Poster for Bandits

Bandits 

8:00 PM, 22nd July, 2002

  • M
  • 123 mins
  • 2001
  • Barry Levinson
  • Harley Peyton
  • Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Troy Garity

Terry and Joe are the 'Sleepover Bandits'. (If you ask me, 'Sleepover Bandits' is a much better title than 'Bandits' - a movie called 'Bandits' could be about almost anything - but MGM didn't ask me, so 'Bandits' it is.) Terry (Thornton) is the complete wreck, with at least four unrelated neuroses; Joe (Willis) is the calm, studly one. The two men hold bank managers hostage overnight, then go to work with them early the next morning so that they can rob the bank before it opens. Their initial success leads to fame, and fame, inevitably, leads to the fatal One Robbery Too Many In Which Things Go Horribly Wrong. (I'm not giving anything away: the film opens with this robbery, and the rest of the story is told in flashback.) Bandits is an unstable mix of comedy, drama, heist action and romance, poured into an oddly-shaped mould and served with a surprise twist; of all the directors in the world, perhaps only Barry Levinson could take something so offbeat and make it feel so generic. But it isn't generic - and not bad, either.

Henry Fitzgerald