The Good Thief (2002)

Neil Jordan’s remake of Bob le flambeur (1955) stars Nick Nolte as a heroin addled retired thief plotting one last job on a Monte Carlo casino. We’ve seen the sub-genre of heist done to death, with nothing reaching the heights of Rififi (released the same year as Bon le flambeur, funnily enough) and having to settle for sleeker and quicker paced thrillers (Soderbergh’s 2001 Oceans Eleven remake for example) to whet our appetites. The Good Thief is another to fall into the solid heist film category, although Nick Nolte brings some human element into the story; he’s absolutely terrific as Bob, completely convincing the audience of his drug addiction, most notably when he handcuffs himself to his bed in order to go cold turkey. These actions are put in place so that he can pull of a heist, the planning of which involves much techno jargon as the crew attempt to pull off two heists but only one of which is the real deal to fool a local detective who is on Bob’s tale. Jordan’s film has enough about it to keep you locked in to the story and the characters- there’s even a fleeting cameo from Ralph Fiennes for audiences to enjoy- but lacks the tension needed for it to be up there with the best of the genre. 6.8/10