Script Review: HEIST, written by David Mamet

(04/10/01)

NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.

You can talk about any overextended hyperbole from the master Hitchcock. But nothing compares to the moment in HOUSE OF GAMES where the woman weve been watching the whole movie finds out, to her shock (and our open-mouthed, mirthful astonishment), that shes been set up. She thought she was in on the scam and shes the mark! David Mamet, who wrote and directed the movie, had created such an intricate latticework of twists and schemes that we follow along like a dog on a Kibble-trail and get sucker-punched along with our "heroine." HOUSE OF GAMES is the ultimate mind-f**k movie. And though Ive watched it a dozen times, it never ceases to fascinate me.

David Mamets latest script, HEIST (no the -- just HEIST), which hes directed, doesnt follow in HOUSEs footsteps. In this explosions are used rather than the brain.

Joe Moore, a career criminal, pulls a jewelry store robbery at the opening of the script. Along with him is his wife and his two partners-in-crime: Blane and Pincus. The job goes off with only one hitch: Moore is seen on a surveillance camera and couldnt get the tape before the cops showed up. This means hes going to have to skip town with his young, beautiful wife. Fine with him, really, because hes sick of the life and wants to sail away in his boat (which he built). A problem arises: he set up a second score with a thug-in-a-suit named Bergman (Bergman is in hock because he bought Joe all the equipment he needed for the job). Bergman is also the man that funded the jewelry-store job and when Joe hands in his gold (to be transferred to cash) Bergman holds out and demands that Joe, whose picture is on every cops dashboard, go ahead with "the Swiss job."

Joe has no choice but to acquiesce. He has to pay off his guys and get out of town before hes busted -- and that takes money.

Joe plans on getting some of the jewelry store money, selling his boat, and leaving Bergman out to dry. Bergmans nephew, Bella, acting as a watchdog, discovers Joes ruse and kills his plans. Forcing him to actually go through with the crime. Bella has to now go along for the ride to make sure Joe doesnt try to steal and run.

Which brings us to the centerpiece of the script: the heist. (Apt, no?) It involves a shipment of gold (Joe says at one point that the "love of gold" makes the world go round) coming in from Switzerland. The guys, duly prepared, have to go to the airport, cause a distraction, get into the outdoor guards station, and load the gold onto a truck and leave safely. Which wont be easy, natch.

When I was writing my Oscar picks, I mentioned that, to me, Mamet making this film was a disappointment. And I dont feel any different having now read it.

Even though Mamets films dont make much cash (as Mamet said in STATE AND MAIN, its the per-screen average that counts!), you cant deny hes been on a roll: his last three films have been THE SPANISH PRISONER (a brother to HOUSE OF GAMES and almost as effective), THE WINSLOW BOY (a total, puissant 360-spin for the foulmouthed author) and STATE AND MAIN (the best film, in my opinion, of 2000). Next to Woody Allen, Mamet has become the most assured, consistent filmmaker working below the studio radar.

HEIST isnt RONIN (a film Mamet rewrote and took his name off of), but its not that far off. The second half of the script, made up of the heist itself, is spectacular. A smart, realistic movie heist with enough spins and scenes of almost-capture to entertain any raised-on-Bruckheimer audience.

My problem with the script is that its competent, but it doesnt take the genre anywhere new. Its too simple and generic for Mamet. Wheres the guy that took the men-lost-in-the-woods story and turned it on its head (I still believe that was a personal movie for Mamet and he saw himself in the Hopkins character)? Mamets dialogue is here, but it doesnt add up to much. Same goes for the characters. Mamet is usually smart in this department, letting the person reveal himself through his dialogue, but the people who live within these pages are one-dimensional and hard to tell apart. Its true that a lot of Mamets players come alive when he casts picture-perfect actors. Still, though, the people in HEIST are below par. No one really stands out as an individual. And though Mamet gets off a good line here and there -- one characters says: "I never liked the Swiss in any case. You know why? They make those little clocks, two c***suckers come out of them, little hammers, hit each other on the head. What kind of sick mentality is that?" -- the endless witticisms that marked STATE AND MAIN and his other works just dont make an appearance.

Mamet is a weird guy. Like many great authors, his interests reach far. And this leads to him taking on every conceivable genre. The films HOUSE OF GAMES, THE EDGE, THE WINSLOW BOY and STATE AND MAIN (as well as the plays GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS and EDMOND) couldnt be more dissimilar. So it shouldnt surprise me Mamet would one day tackle the action-movie arena. That doesnt mean I have to sit back and like it, either. Mamet making an action film should be an event. You expect him to reformulate it. The way David O. Russell did with THREE KINGS. But, alas, it is not to be.

Gene Hackman will play Joe. Rebecca Pidgeon (who should have gotten an Oscar nomination for STATE AND MAIN) is Joes wife. Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay, Danny DeVito and Sam Rockwell round out the cast.

Mamet directed the movie himself, which means (unlike in, say, WAG THE DOG) the actors will stick to his staccato dialogue. Something I love. No one does it better than Pidgeon (Mamets wife) and I look forward to Rockwells and Lindos take on it. ("The thing of it is, the thing of it is, its a question of redistribution...")

HEIST wasnt much of a pleasure to read. And thats not uncommon with Mamets scripts. Despite writing almost no text in his plays, Mamet overloads his scripts with "action." He writes it in caps, which makes it blinding, and has the annoying preference to list every new move with an "angle" slugline and lists so many camera directions that the script is almost a shot-list. Mamet has an awkward style of using extra spaces and misplaced commas (I found this in all of his scripts) and it sometimes makes it hard to understand whats going on.

This script has the feel of something thats been rewritten again and again over the years. This invades and muddles the story. Joe and his young wife, Fran, have a complicated relationship. She gets involved with Bella (sexually). And Joe seems to know about it one moment -- having "sent" her to him -- and at other moments he doesnt. Toward the end of the script Mamet makes it seem that Fran is in on a scam by Joe against Bella. But then shes back with Bella and its as if shes screwing Joe. Well, which is it? Mamet never clears up this couples esoteric only-in-their-minds dealings and were sort of left out when were supposed to be gaping at how one played the other.

I have no doubt that HEIST will be a great film. Mamet is an able director and he always gets the job done. As with all his other films, I will be there the day it opens.

It still upsets me Mamet didnt try harder. Didnt put a Mamet spin on the material. As it is its no different than, say, the latest tough-guy hooey that Wesley Snipes would make. The bad-bad guys strut and huff and talk about how they will kill you if you dont tell them where their money is. And the good-bad guys stick together and use their good-bad guy wiles to get out of trouble. Cops never know whats going on and always arrive accidentally on the scene. Kids are used as an easy way for a man to give up his friends. A man begs for his wifes life: Dont kill my wife; take me. The older thieves dont believe the young, inexperienced man can do the crime at hand and discuss this at length.

When Mamet arrived on the playwright scene, he reinvented how people used dialogue in their plays. He was a tidal wave that knocked people on their ass with his use of our language. A lot has happened since he won his Pulitzer (he wrote crap like THE UNTOUCHABLES, for instance). But Mamet never sold out and has stayed remarkably fresh. And while HEIST will no doubt make a good film, Mamet, who on his best day outranks just about anyone, should have tried harder and done more.

-- Darwin Mayflower.