Bandits (2001)

Bandits is the story of two criminals who one day impulsively escape from prison and decided to embark on a series of bank robberies to fund their plan of retiring in paradise down in Mexico. Joe (Willis) is the more charismatic and cool one, while Terry (Thornton) is a neurotic, hypochondriac with a number of quirks and phobias, one of which (fear of antique furniture) is something Thornton deals with in real life.

Joe and Terry enlist the help of Joe's goofy aspiring stunt man relative Harvey (Garity) to be their get away driver. It's not long before the criminals become media sensations dubbed the Sleepover Banditss due to their M.O. of putting the managers of the targeted banks on house arrest the night before the job.

Things go fine enough until a chance encounter with a distraught, bored, and desperae runaway housewife named Kate (Blanchett) tags along, getting into an awkward love triangle with Joe and Terry that could threaten to really throw things off balance.

PLotwise, there's a few nice little twists, turns, and touches that help the movie stand out a bit. Mostly though, it's just a little standard. The film tries to be a crime dramedy, but more often than not, it's seems unsure of what it really wants to be, becoming meandering, uneven tonally, and unfocused. Also, the film is structed as a flash back flashforward frame story, and, while it doesn't ruin the film, it doesn't keep it from getting bloated either. The plot device with the America's Most Wanted style show seems like it's aiming for satire, but mostly reminded me of Natural Born Killers which did the same sort of thing, and far better.

I enjoyed this movie. It's fun, entertaining, has some decent location shooting in Oregon, good cinematography from veteran Dante Spinotti, and some solid performances from the likeable and talented cast. None of the work these people put in ranks among their respective bests, but they're all still solid nonetheless.

I liked the quirkiness and the banter, but the movie seemed like it was trying too hard. Plus, I think Levinson had some really good ideas, but decided to use them all, resulting in a movie that should be tighter and more concise, but isn't.

All in all, this is a flawed movie, but it's well meaning. I've seen far more derivative capers than this, and, even though this one has issues, thankfully the cnematogrpahy, locations, and performances are strong enough to carry it. This really could have been something quite terrific. Instead it's merely just "not bad". Still though, it's got enough good stuff to warrant a viewing.