SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
There's something about a heist movie that is just fun. One of the very first that I remember watching is "The Thomas Crown Affair" with Pierce Brosnan. I saw it when I was a kid, I still remember it. It had intrigue and style and kind of "James Bond."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR")
PIERCE BROSNAN: (As Thomas Crown) Do you want to dance, or do you want to dance?
DETROW: And most importantly to me in a heist, there was a twist that even the audience did not see coming. I have always loved a heist, and that is something that ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Megan Lim agrees with me on. Megan does not agree with me on all movie things, so that's a big concession. But if you do not agree with both of us, Megan and POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR host Glen Weldon are here to dissect heist movies and explain to us why they are such a crowd favorite. Welcome to you both.
MEGAN LIM, BYLINE: Hey. Thanks, Scott.
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Thank you. Great to be here.
DETROW: All right, so let's get one of the key questions out of the way first. Like, how do we define a heist movie? What are the key features of a really good, classic heist movie?
LIM: So for me, there's a few things that are sort of like the hallmark features of a great heist movie, one of the main ones being, like, assembling the crew. I always think about that, like, famous montage from "Oceans Eleven."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OCEAN'S ELEVEN")
ELLIOTT GOULD: (As Reuben Tishkoff) And you're going to need a crew as nuts as you are. Who do you got in mind?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Danny Ocean) All right, who's in?
LIM: And so it's, like, you know, you've got the mastermind, and maybe there's a demo guy, and there's a techie and there's the guy in disguise. But it's - like, assembling the crew is a big part of it.
WELDON: Yeah, but you also need the plan, right? The plan is the big deal because the thing about a heist is we're part of it, you know?
LIM: Right.
WELDON: We're in on it. So we see - you got to lay out the challenge for us. We want to see the security system. We want to see the guards. We want to see the cameras, the alarms.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OCEAN'S ELEVEN")
CLOONEY: (As Danny Ocean) The elevator won't move without authorized fingerprint identification...
BRAD PITT: (As Rusty Ryan) Which we can't fake.
CLOONEY: (As Danny Ocean) ...And vocal confirmation from both the security system within the Bellagio and the vault below.
PITT: (As Rusty Ryan) Which we won't get.
CLOONEY: (As Danny Ocean) Furthermore...
WELDON: Bonus points if we see a scale model or a blueprint at some point.
DETROW: (Laughter).
WELDON: And then, you know, the mastermind outlines the plan. We get to see shots of what's going to happen if everything goes right. Bonus points if we see watches get synchronized. I'm old-school like that.
LIM: But I would add, though, that a big part of what I find fun in a heist movie is that, like, you're kind of - you're in on the first plan, which is, like, this false sense of...
DETROW: Right.
LIM: ...Security 'cause a good heist movie has a secret plan that you weren't in on, and that's, like, how everything gets pulled off after the wrench gets thrown into the initial plan...
WELDON: Right.
LIM: ...Which is fun. It's, like, almost interactive as an audience member. You're, like, kind of a detective. You know some of this is going to go sideways. You know there's a part of the plan that you're not quite being shown yet, and trying to figure that out until the end is part of the fun.
WELDON: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, if you want to break it down, Scott, I would say you need a plan, you need a team and you need a twist.
DETROW: Second question - how much of the movie does the heist need to take up for it to be a heist movie? If there's a movie where a heist is part of the plot but not necessarily the central part of the plot, do we count it? Like, two extremes. Like, on one hand, "Office Space" - it ends with a heist...
WELDON: Sure.
DETROW: ...To steal the pennies, if it were, from the company, or "The Dark Knight," which starts with this amazing setpiece of a bank robbery, but then we kind of move on, and that's just the introduction to the Joker, even though it is like a lifted-from-the-movie-"Heat" classic heist...
WELDON: Exactly.
DETROW: ...Movie amazing scene of all the things you talked about in the bank robbery.
LIM: I mean, yeah. I - for me, a heist is definitely a separate genre from a crime thriller where they rob a bank. I think that a large part of it is also the style of a movie. It's Brad Pitt leaning against a muscle car in a leather suit. It's not Vin Diesel in a flak suit...
WELDON: Sure.
LIM: ...And a machine gun...
WELDON: Yeah, I get that.
LIM: ...For me.
DETROW: (Laughter)
WELDON: You can have the glamorous and aspirational and stylish, like "The Italian Job."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ITALIAN JOB")
EDWARD NORTON: (As Steve) You're going to try to crack my safe?
CHARLIZE THERON: (As Stella Bridger) He took my father from me. I'm taking this.
WELDON: There's a movie I saw 22 years ago. I still remember that everyone drove Mini Coopers, right? It's really the only thing I remember about that movie, but that's the style.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ITALIAN JOB")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) The gold has come to us.
MARK WAHLBERG: (As Charlie Croker) Gridlock every route except for the one we choose. Force that truck to go exactly where we want it to go.
NORTON: (As Steve) Stop them before they hit the street.
WELDON: I kind of gravitate toward the scuzzy, the cutthroat, the venal. Like, give me Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film "The Killing," which stars Sterling Hayden as a crook who tries to put a team together to rob a racetrack.
STERLING HAYDEN: (As Johnny Clay) Give or take a few thousand, I figure the loot on this deal at 2 million.
WELDON: And as he brings in more and more people into the circle of trust, you keep thinking, don't trust this guy. This guy's going to blab.
DETROW: Broadly speaking, does all of this raise, like, a mildly uncomfortable, maybe not uncomfortable question? Like, do Americans just, like, really deep down love bank robbers?
LIM: I think yes. I think that, like, as long as there are banks, there are people that hate banks.
(LAUGHTER)
LIM: And I think that it is, like, kind of a global thing, right? But I do think that there is something that really connects with the American audience of, like, these old-school days of, like, you know, robbers in their awesome suits, and they're, you know (laughter), just kind of celebrities. But it also kind of does this double duty of being, A, a cool thing, but B, what feels like an almost victimless crime, you know? It's - who's really getting hurt? Oh, this billionaire who's going to take insurance money and recover, like, immediately?
WELDON: Right.
LIM: It's fun for an audience to see the rug pulled out from under them.
WELDON: Yeah, that's a great point because no one wants to rob from, you know, George Bailey's Building & Loan in Bedford Falls, right?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE")
FRANK FAYLEN: (As Ernie Bishop) Don't look now, but there's something funny going on over there at the bank, George. I've never really seen one, but that's got all the earmarks of being a run.
WELDON: (Laughter) Like, if you can picture the guy...
DETROW: (Laughter).
WELDON: ...You're not going to walk in there 'cause he's just going to say, well, your money's not here. It's in Joe's house and in Mrs. Backman's (ph) house.
DETROW: Get on the ground, George.
WELDON: (Laughter) Exactly. I think everyone has walked into a bank and surreptitiously, consciously or subconsciously, cased the joint, right? This isn't just me, right? You kind of notice where the guards are, where the bank vault is.
LIM: (Laughter).
WELDON: Am I alone here?
LIM: No, no, no, no.
DETROW: I'm going to put - this is hypothetical disclaimer to anybody listening.
WELDON: (Laughter).
LIM: You are not alone. I definitely notice.
DETROW: No, yeah. I think about more of, like, the getaway plan.
WELDON: Yeah.
DETROW: Like, OK, where would I go? - where I would get in the car. Which way would I run, you know?
WELDON: Well, there's the appeal of the heist film - right? - because the - what the heist film offers is process. It also offers you, at the same time, this illusion that all you would need to do to win over a bank - a big, faceless institution - is, you know, meticulous planning and execution, like, with no room for human error. Now, that is a very flawed premise, and it's the one we shouldn't believe in, but we're Americans. We like to believe in the hard to believe.
DETROW: All right, let's wind it down this way. We have talked about a bunch of different movies that we love, but let me ask you, is there a movie you'd recommend that maybe we haven't mentioned yet, that maybe is, like, one of those more sidebar, lesser tier but still, like, has all of these ingredients movies?
LIM: I got to mention "Logan Lucky." It was...
WELDON: Oh.
LIM: ...Directed by Steven Soderbergh back in 2017, who also directed my other, like, favorite classic, "Ocean's Eleven," obviously. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver are brothers in West Virginia who rob a speedway during the Coca-Cola 600.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LOGAN LUCKY")
DANIEL CRAIG: (As Joe Bang) You Logans must be as simple-minded as people say.
ADAM DRIVER: (As Clyde Logan) People say that?
CHANNING TATUM: (As Jimmy Logan) People say that?
WELDON: Another film more people should have seen is the 2018 film "Widows." That stars Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki. They are widows of Chicago bank robbers who owe the mob a lot of money, so they set out to steal it from a crooked politician played by Colin Farrell.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WIDOWS")
VIOLA DAVIS: (As Veronica Rawlings) My husband left me the plans for his next job. All I need is a crew to pull it off.
ELIZABETH DEBICKI: (As Alice) Why should we trust you anyway?
DAVIS: (As Veronica) Because I'm the only one standing between you and a bullet in your head.
WELDON: Now, what I love about this heist film is that it's messy. And we talked about monkey wrenches. This is monkey wrenches all the way down. It starts off the rails and flies even further off them. And there is - to what we talked about, there is a twist you won't see coming that makes you question everything you've seen before in the film. Great movie - "Widows."
DETROW: Glen Weldon, Megan Lim, I've enjoyed talking to you about heist movies. I'm hypothetically thinking about planning a heist with both of you. I appreciate both of your talking (ph).
LIM: Anytime.
WELDON: Thank you.
LIM: Thanks, Scott.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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