- Title: The Art of the Steal
- IMDB: link
Written and directed by Jonathan Sobol, The Art of the Steal is your basic heist flick centered around getaway driver Crunch Calhoun (Kurt Russell) who, after spending seven years inside a Polish prison thanks to his brother Nicky (Matt Dillon), gets the old gang (Kenneth Welsh, Chris Diamantopoulos), his new apprentice (Jay Baruchel), and Nicky together for one last score.
The movie also includes a B-story involving a buffoonish Interpol agent (Jason Jones, hamming it up like a SNL skit) and his criminal consultant (Terence Stamp) which play much more lighthearted than the rest of the film giving it an inconsistent tone that doesn’t quite pay off.
Despite the cast (Baruchel being the stand-out and Dillon something of a head-scratching miscast), and some pieces of the story that work well, The Art of the Steal isn’t as smart as it thinks it is or as smart as it needs to be to pull of the big twists it has in store (most of which you should see coming).
Released on both DVD and Blu-ray, extras includes audio commentary from Sobol and producer Nicholas Tabarrok, a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the movie, and a second featurette on the making of a period specific flashback on which the con in the film hinges.
[Anchor Bay, DVD $24.98 / Blu-ray $29.99]
