(rated R, 2 hrs.)
What do you get when you throw three of America’s most skilled actors together? A heist film with intelligence and sophistication! Three generations of the greatest, Marlon Brando as Max, an upper class fence who has the mother of all scores, a four million-dollar payoff for Robert DeNiro (Nick) in the form of a royal scepter presently impounded in the Montreal customs house. Of course Edward Norton (Brian/Jack), the young, feisty, con man wants a piece of the action. Directed by Frank “What About Bob?” Oz, the story follows DeNiro who says to his lover, Angela Bassett, “just one more”, torn between his life as jazz club owner vs. safe cracking maven. Norton is incredible and snotty (think “Primal Fear”) and DeNiro can straddle a surveillance camera better than any stunt Tom Cruise pulled off in Mission Impossible. Not since James Caan in “Thief” has there been such a focus of tense safecracking as greediness sets in for these masterminds. Yet despite it’s tension, the movie’s only drawback is that emotions are missing from the characters (namely DeNiro and Bassett) so we aren’t sure if the director was aiming for his past “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” caper or a thriller in the form of “The French Connection” or in this case, since it’s filmed in Montreal, “The French CANDIAN Connection”.
