Category: Crime

Film School Rejects presents The Influence of Silent Cinema on the “John Wick” Franchise.

Oliver Lyttelton and  The Playlist recently posted their choices for The 50 Best Crime Movies Of The 21st Century So Far.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. “No Country For Old Men” (2007)
Even knowing the high quality of the Coen Brothers’ work in general, and knowing their love for crime fiction, no one was quite prepared for “No Country For Old Men.” Their first adaptation (it’s adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel), it maintained the greatest qualities of their earlier work — dry wit, careful plotting, unforgettable characters, bursts of ultraviolence — but with a darker, more apocalyptic mood than ever before. Even though its story of the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, and the men pursuing the money that Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) has taken, is set in 1980s Texas, it somehow feels predictive of the world that we’ve ended up in a decade later in some strange ways, and we’re sure it’ll only continue to resonate further over time.

33. “John Wick” (2014)/“John Wick: Chapter 2” (2017)
We couldn’t pick between the two Keanu Reeves-reviving badass-fests here: the first has a purity to it, plus Willem Dafoe and that adorable puppy for the first reel, the second embellishes and extrapolates the film’s strange world and amps the arthouse-action vibe up to eleven. And while they’re action movies first and foremost, they’re also definitely crime films, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch building a fascinating pulp-comic-book underworld more compelling, and full of more intriguing characters and rules, than we’ve seen in this genre for a while. Plus, of course, it has Reeves at his taciturn, quietly psychotic best, it looks beautiful, and it has some of the best shootout sequences since Sam Peckinpah shuffled off the mortal coil. Bring on ‘Chapter 3,’ as soon as humanly possible.

39. “A History Of Violence” (2005)
The first and best of the two crime pics that David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen made together back-to-back, “A History Of Violence” doesn’t initially seem like the sort of thing that the body-horror master would make, but like its lead character, soon reveals itself to have all kinds lurking under the surface. Based on a graphic novel, it sees Tom, a seemingly ordinary family man (Mortensen) praised as a hero after killing two men trying to rob his diner, only for a mysterious, scarred criminal (Ed Harris) to turn up and claim that Tom has a past, and that these were far from the first people he’d killed. Cronenberg and his cast (particularly William Hurt, whose Oscar-nominated supporting turn can practically be seen from space) don’t hide from the comic book nature of the material, but for all the ultraviolence (and two of the most narratively effective sex scenes in history), there’s something deeply human here, about an attempt to escape your nature, and whether there really are second acts in American life.

The Playlist recently posted their choices for The 35 Best Heist Movies.  There are a lot of great movies on this list.  In an effort to narrow it down, I decided to choose from movies where one heist was the focus of the film.

So using just their list here are three of my favorites…

“Rififi” (1955)
Yes, we know. This is the grandaddy of all heist films, the one that tops everyone’s list and is name dropped constantly. But if you haven’t seen the film (and by God, you should remedy that situation quickly) don’t get suckered into thinking this is just some cinematic touchstone that everyone talks about but no one really watches. If anything, Jules Dassin’s “Rififi” remains the template and the standard, with a centerpiece heist sequence that is still yet to be topped. The plot is standard stuff: four guys target a jewelry store, plan the perfect job and things don’t quite go as planned. But Dassin’s masterstroke is the 30-minute, nearly completely silent heist (no dialogue, no soundtrack) that brilliantly throws viewers right into the heart-pounding, tension filled robbery. A masterpiece in every sense of the word, “Rififi” remains the torchbearer for the genre with very good reason.

“The Getaway” (1972)
Based on a novel by the poet laureate of hard pulp Jim Thompson, directed by feminist favorite Sam Peckinpah, and starring a Steve McQueen firmly in the midst of a cocaine-soaked marriage breakdown, “The Getaway” rises out of a dense fog of testosterone: it doesn’t get any more boys-night-in than that. Ali McGraw (somewhat miscast, to occasionally charming effect) uses her wiles to free husband “Doc” McCoy (McQueen) from prison. After a botched bank robbery, the bickering pair go on the run with the loot, pursued by cannon-fodder cops and a variety of goons, led by the astonishingly repellent and malevolent Rudy (Al Letteria). Perhaps inevitably, it all culminates in a bloodbath in El Paso, and a tender reconciliation for the then real-life lovers. This is by no means top-tier Peckinpah; both he and McQueen were desperate for a no-nonsense hit after the commercial failure of “Junior Bonner” (1972). Nevertheless, all the staples are there — stunningly edited montages, patented slo-mo bullet ballet — and “The Getaway” is a solid, straight-ahead action flick that’s always fun to wander into the middle of on late night T.V. Possibly not Robert Evans’ favorite film though…

“The Asphalt Jungle” (1950)
John Huston’s 1950 noir may be better known now for the films it influenced (at least half the titles on this list, notably “Rififi”), and for an early luminous performance by Marilyn Monroe, but the film, creaky though it is in places and marred by some didactic, moralistic dialogue, is still a compelling piece in its own right. The narrative arc, (a man has a plan, gets a gang together, pulls off a heist, only to have chance and human nature foil the scheme) has become pretty much the heist film template, but details like the corruption of the police force and the careful characterizations of the gang members keep the proceedings fresh. And while censor-friendly debates on the nature of criminality abound, it’s clear where Huston’s sympathy actually lies; it is power, not lawbreaking, that corrupts here, so the only people with any sort of a code are those on the very bottom of the food chain: Sterling Hayden’s petty hood; the girl who loves him; the hunchbacked getaway driver and the safe-cracking family man. Disgust is reserved for those further up the hierarchy, whose degenerate desires eventually thwart them (both the mastermind and the front/fence character – a suave Louis Calhern – are undone by their interest in young nubile girls), while Hayden’s Dix is rewarded for his staunch, if misplaced loyalty, and perverse nobility, with the kind of tragic, theatrical, poetic death; the greatest honor a movie criminal in oppressive ‘50s America could hope for.