'The Maiden Heist' works because of stars

The Maiden Heist (2009)
Starring: Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, and Marcia Gay Harden
Director: Peter Hewitt
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When the gallery collection they've guarded for countless years is sold to a museum in Denmark, three security guards (Freeman, Macy, and Walken) decide to steal three pieces they have grown deeply attached to.

"The Maiden Heist" presents three of the most talented actors working today in a gentle, well-mannered comedy that's populated with believable characters who embark on an unbelievably complex endeavor: An art heist that involves creating forgeries of three pieces of art and replacing them for the originals. As these three characters bumble their way through their first and last heist, it is the charm and humanity that Walken, Freeman, and Macy imbue them with that make the humor and jokes work.

In fact, without the charm of this movie's stars, it would have fallen completely flat. The strange (and not very bright) character that Macy plays would have been annoying instead of amusing if played by a lesser actor--and as it is, the main joke involving him obsessively getting naked and flexing his muscles in front of his beloved sculpture in the gallery isn't as funny as the filmmakers thought it was, given that they repeat it a couple of times. Similarly, Walken's adventure- and romance-starved security guard would have come across as a jerk if not for his ability to convey that he still loves his wife even while portraying the character as being tired of her and everything else in his life, except for the mystery and adventure that he sees hidden in his favorite painting. And Freeman's male "cat lady" closet artist would have come across as a flaming queen if anyone but an actor of his great skill had been cast in the part. The characters and the script they reside in are elevated spectacularly by the presence of these three great actors.

If you like low-key, character driven comedies and have a taste for heist movies where the heist only works if the amateurs trying to pull it off get very, very lucky, this is a film you should check out. It's better than it's direct-to-DVD pedigree would imply, as it only ended up as such because the original distributor went bankrupt before it was released.

Idiots make poor (if realistic) criminals

Welcome to Collinwood (2002)
Starring: Isaiah Washington, William H. Macy, and Sam Rockwell
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Four down-and-out small-time thieves and hoods get their hands on a fool-proof heist plan. It's not exactly a "job of the century," but these are yutzes who think small, and who rarely have more than two pennies to run together, so the contents of a pawnbroker's safe is the take of a lifetime to them. Unfortunately, none of this little gang have two braincells to rub together either.


"Welcome to Collinwood" is populated with characters so pathetic that the viewer can't help but feel sorry for them. One also can't help but root for them to succeed in their sad little heist, although it is also certain that they're going to fail, because they're all so damn dumb. But they're not dumb in a screwball comedy kind of way... they're dumb in the way that real-life crooks are dumb. Where the characters of "Welcome to Collinwood" part with their realworld counterparts is that the would-be master-theives are, basically good and kindhearted; some of them are just too lazy for real work, while others are professional small-time crooks who are in dire straights. In the end, they turn out to fundamentally be decent, if thoroughly stupid, people.

I'm not 100% certain what kind of story the filmmakers wanted to tell with this movie, and I'm not sure they were either. If there had been a little more of a point to the film (other than "idiots make lousy criminals" as the film's tagline says), this might have been a Six-Star movie. I did enjoy watching it, I just wished there had been a little more to the film.