"There's something quite fascinating with crooks, and criminals, and all things against the law," Jason Statham said in our RT interview, "It's a fascination that will never, ever die." After a series of martial arts flicks, Statham returns to his petty crime roots with The Bank Job, opening this Friday, starring as a man over his head in the real-life 1971 robbery of safety deposit boxes. The film itself is a throwback to the gritty heist flicks of decades past, a stark difference to the frothy genre efforts that have dominated the scene as of late (like The Italian Job or the Ocean's remakes). But the heist movie continues to survive not because of our obsession with the slimeball anti-hero, but also the genre's ability to convincingly morph into areas like comedy, action, and horror. In this week's Total Recall, take a look at a some of the many masks the heist movie can wear.

Mission: Impossible (1996, 67 percent on the Tomatometer)

The Job: Framed for his team's ambush, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) goes on the run, assembling a new crew to steal the list of C.I.A. undercover agents in exchange for the real mole's identity. Released during the summer of Independence Day and Twister, director Brian de Palma bucked the blockbuster trend by making a thriller long on plot and intentionally muddled storytelling. "Destined to satisfy the thrill junkie and the sophisticate alike (Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee)," de Palma consistently keeps the audience on their toes, especially with an outrageous late-game twist that had the TV show fans crying foul.

The Payoff: Mission: Impossible's most memorable sequence features Ethan's descending into a C.I.A. computer room. Re-envisioning Rififi for the espionage age, it's a tense, blisteringly silent caper.

Mission: Impossible trailer.

The Score (2001, 75 percent)

The Job: Criminal mastermind Max (Marlon Brando) lures his safecracking colleague Nick (Robert DeNiro) into a high stakes score that'll let them retire from crime for good. His inside man Jackie (Edward Norton) has found his way into a job at the Montreal Customs House as a janitor - a physically handicapped janitor - all to procure a "priceless" Scepter in lock at Customs. Director Frank Oz reportedly struggled with Brando, who couldn't take him seriously given his past life as Miss Piggy. Kenneth Turran of the LA Times wrote, "The Score will remind you of classic caper films of the past, and that is a good thing."

The Payoff: Great performances by three generations of method actors are real highlight. Norton has gotten a lot of the attention, particularly the moment when he drops his dog and pony show and pulls a gun on his coworkers in the Customs House.

The Score trailer.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, 100 percent)

The Job: A gang of crooks takes a subway hostage, threatening to kill a person a minute unless the city delivers them a cool mil. As a transit cop (Walter Matthau) negotiates with the leader, Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), he ponders just how they plan on getting away trapped underground. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three moves along confidently, showing not just the crooks' point of view but develops Matthau's story as he plugs away at the control center, along with scenes at city hall as they struggle to deliver the sack of money on time. Director Joseph Sargeant never lets his foot off the tension (and the comedy), with the movie coming off as a gritty love letter to the Big Apple: "There's a skillful balance between the vulnerability of New Yorkers and the drastic, provocative sense of comedy that thrives all over our sidewalks," write New York Times' Nora Sayre.

The Payoff: "Gesundheit." (Trust us, you'll get it once you watch it.)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three trailer.

Scarecrows (1988, no Tomatometer)

The Job: Mercenaries successfully loot Camp Pendelton for $3.5 million, but get trapped in a forest filled with scarecrows. This, like Reservoir Dogs, is a heist movie that's all aftermath. And while Tarantino takes that opportunity to deconstruct the genre, Scarecrows director William Wesley goes for flat-out horror instead. What follows is one long night as the men and women are individually sliced up and zombified by walking straw men. Cult horror movies almost always have their reputations precede them but Time Out's Derek Adams calls it "reasonably well put together, and features some stomach-turning grisliness."

The Payoff: One zombie encounter shows off amazing gore wizardry; after the victim becomes an involuntary organ donor, he gets filled with straw and hundreds of dollars.

Scarecrows: Jack's back.

Bottle Rocket (1996, 78 percent)

The Job: Three twentysomethings (Owen and Luke Wilson, Robert Musgrave) plan to crack open a warehouse's safe while the place is unoccupied. Unlike most heist movies, Bottle Rocket's thugs are motivated by something most of us can empathize with: the suburban malaise. Of course, we usually respond to listless emotional drainage by skateboarding or picking up the drums, not robbing cold storage facilities. Regardless, as Jam! Movies' Liz Braun sees it, Wes Anderson's first feature is "a beautiful, little film with an uptempo heart."

The Payoff: The surprising final shot. Owen Wilson's hangdog expression is that rare instance where Anderson's bubbleworld of adolescent love and whimsy is punctured by that small inconvenience we call reality.

Bottle Rocket: There he goes and there he is.

Topkapi (1964, 83 percent)

The Job: Peter Ustinov stars as Simpson, a small-time Athens-based hood that becomes entrenched in a plan to steal a jewel-encrusted dagger from Istanbul's Topkapi Palace. While transporting supplies for the job across the border into Turkey, Simpson is stopped by authorities, who mistake the weapons in his car as part of a plot to stage a coup against the government. He's subsequently enlisted as a mole to foil the plot, even as he becomes a more integral part of the caper. Directed by Jules Dassin, Topkapi may lack the heft and menace of his groundbreaking gangster film Rififi. Still, it's an enjoyable, swingin' affair that inspired not only the Mission: Impossible TV series but a real life jewel heist in New York City shortly after the film's release. "It's fun, light hearted, smart and wildly entertaining," wrote Ryan Cracknell of Apollo Guide.

The Payoff: When the heights-averse Simpson scales the palace as part of the heist, its not just a suspenseful, dryly comic moment; the scene also provides a breathtaking view of scenic Istanbul.

Topkapi trailer.