Bandits: Movie & DVD Review (2001)

(Originally published 2001)

Everything about Barry Levinson’s "Bandits" is off--the performances, the direction, the script, the timing, the intent. It’s one of the dullest capers to come out of Hollywood in years, a substitute for sleep medication that’s so self-indulgent and plodding, it drove four people out of my screening midway through.

One wonders if they fell asleep in the parking lot.

The film’s badness comes as a surprise, especially since the cast--Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett--is so appealing. But Levinson ("Diner," "Rain Man"), somehow topping the lameness of his 1998 bomb, "Sphere," wastes them all with lazy, uninspired direction and an unimaginative screenplay by Harley Peyton, which rips off elements of "Bonnie and Clyde," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "Dog Day Afternoon."

Too bad it wasn’t the right elements, such as sharp writing, believable characters and a snappy chemistry between the actors. But since nobody here seems interested in making a movie--particularly this movie--that’s not what audiences get.

The film stars Willis and Thornton as Joe Blake and Terry Collins, a mismatched pair of bank robbers famously known as the Sleepover Bandits, a name given to them by the media because of their unusual M.O.

Instead of barging into a bank and causing a scene, Joe and Terry--who, we’re minded time and again, are really just a couple of nice guys in fright wigs with problems of their own--choose a different route. They take the bank manager hostage the night before, share dinner with him and his family, and then, the following morning, line their pockets with cash with the manager’s help.

No muss, no fuss--and hey, they score new friends in the process.

But when a bored, neurotic housewife named Kate (Blanchett) gets caught up in their shenanigans, the film, which has heretofore blown it as an off-beat comedy, now adds a shaky romantic twist as Joe and Terry fall for Kate--and she falls for them--a la Truffaut’s "Jules and Jim."

Whatever. What kills "Bandits" from stealing its share of laughs isn’t just that everyone here is a type, but how endlessly chatty the script is. People love to talk in this movie, and yet nobody says anything funny or of much interest. They just talk and talk and talk, mugging at the screen and flailing their arms as if that, coupled with their star power, is enough to keep the padded production together.

It isn’t. Sixty minutes could have been cut from this movie and no one would have noticed. Except, of course, maybe those people who bailed midway through.

Grade: D