Thick as Thieves

Morgan Freeman stars in this cape thriller. This movie is nothing new, DeNiro had made his, so has Hackman, along with many other actors who have stared in heist movies. This is the latest version of a movie of this genre. Freeman is teamed up with Antonio Banderas who has also played in movies under this category. Like Female Fatale for example.

This movie has twist and turns, I am still not sure exactly what occured. One Russian oligarch is poised against another in New York and some parts/scenes occur in New Jersey. One of these powerful Russians is played by Marcel Lures people may remember as the villian in The Peacemaker. His nemesis is Rade Serbedzija who is actually Freeman's partner but the viewer does not know this until the end. This is just one of the twists.

Robert Forster is also in this movie. His most notable appearance was in Jackie Brown and I have not seen him practicially since then.

This movie seems to have multiple characters who are double crossed. The plot is Freeman is a profesional thief who seemingly works for one of these powerful Russian families. He recruits Banderas to steal these eggs that are stored in a high tech, guarded, and massive safe. These eggs are not known to exist to only but a few people. That aspect is sort of borrowed from the much better movie called War with Jason Statham and Jet Li.

Banderas is a police officer but we do not know this until the end as well. From Miami who was playing Freeman but this is only subterfuge. The safe attacking scenes were shown before in other movies, certainly from The Score. The Score was cool since they blew up the safe with water pressure. The Score, with DeNiro and Edward Norton, was another Hollywood heist movie which I was thinking about when I mentioned DeNiro's name before. This movie's ending was similiar in that one partner holds the other partner up with a gun and steals the prize possession. In regards to The Score, it was a sceptor that was the target, a gorgeous item. In the final scenes of this movie, the stolen artifacts are wooden eggs from Russia in 1917. That is right, wood, no intrinsic value, the value is symbolic. Apparently, these eggs helped lift some spirits in a period of disorder and starvation in Russia.

No one dies at the end, the music in intense and correlates with the scenes. The music is entertaining, the story line is mostly intriguing. I do not like it how the pretty girl-Radha Mitchell from Man on Fire instantly falls in love with Banderas. I guess it is that easy in the movies and when Freeman warns him to stay away from her, well, she comes to him and starts flirting with him over a newspaper. She does not waste a lot of time in this movie, unromantic, she is basically a freak reminiscent from the idea of dirty dancing.

I was waiting for someone to get $20 million since each egg was worth that much to these Russian organizations. But not $1 exchanged hands in this movie and it seemed everyone was happy accept the NYPD Lt. Forster who was obviously flustered. He was not able to arrest his man Freeman who seemingly slithered by him again. How was a Miami detective Banderas requested by Forster to beguile Freeman? Not sure. How did Freeman know Banderas was a police officer before they even met? Apparently Freeman pays better than Forster. Whatever, I do not believe corruption is that easy. Perhaps the common viewer does.

Mitchell, in one of the final scenes, scolds Banderas for assuming she does not drink alcohol. But in the beginning she informs she does not. Whatever.

The movie was entertaining. It had some cool and riveting music-which is highly important to me. It was mostly credible, it had a pretty girl and the villians were believable. There was some high tech merchandise showed in this movie and any movie that shows tools, I give a little more credence too. One too many twists though and some of the movie was Hollywood regurgitation.

I allocate this movie three stars.***