The Art of the Steal

The Art of the Steal

There are a few actors today who can save any movie just by being in it. Kurt Russell is number one on that short list for me, and has been for decades. What a career the man has had. What a niche he’s built for himself. He brings something of his own to everything he does sexy leading man, comedic buffoon, physical actor extraordinaire (see: his performances as Elvis Presley and Herb Brooks).

His last big role was the so enjoyable it should be illegal Stuntman Mike in Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 “Death Proof,” which means it’s been too long since we’ve seen him onscreen. He’s back, as scarred and black leather clad “Crunch Calhoun,” in Jonathan Sobol’s fun, stylish art-heist flick “The Art of the Steal.”

The thieves are always stopped at different borders (the movie jumps around from Detroit to Quebec to Amsterdam, Paris and London), and an Interpol agent named Jason Jones is trying to team up with a former art thief turned informant, played by Terence Stamp, to figure out what the thieves are planning. Terence Stamp plays his part in a mild-mannered abstracted way which emphasizes the frustrated machismo of the Interpol agent, who crushes cups of hot coffee in his bare hands, then says “Ow” afterward.

Stamp has a dreamy-eyed monologue about going to the Victoria and Albert museum as a child and seeing a cup made entirely of jade: “It made me look at everything differently.” The whole movie stops surprisingly, beautifully for his long monologue about what art means to him. A lesser director would have cut that monologue as an irrelevant time waster. But Sobol (who also wrote the script) not only gives that monologue a great payoff near the end of the film but knows that plot is not really “the thing” here, anyway. What is “the thing,” is performances; actors; shtick; mood.

“The Art of the Steal” abounds with funny bits of farcical physical business, wisecracks and an escalating sense of entrapment that causes characters to race around like maniacs. The best one involves Francie in panic mode because he can hardly believe how deep into crime he’s gone (“Interpol’s a real thing??”), so he agrees to transport two criminals across the Canadian border in the trunk of his car.

He glues on a long beard and proceeds to behave totally suspiciously while being questioned by the border patrol guy before finally babbling, “I’m in a play. Witness The Musical! With an exclamation mark!” It’s silliness like that keeps “The Art of the Steal” afloat; I wish more films felt permission to be as silly as this one does. Everybody’s great. Everybody looks like they’re having a ball. The right mood is set early on insouciant, self-aware, absurd.

As the film moves into its third act, where traditionally plot with a capital P takes over, “The Art of the Steal” knows that what interests us is these characters, these actors; their behavior; their interactions. The plot certainly gets its due and the heist that unfolds is gorgeously complex and insane.

But it’s wonderful to see a genre film keeping such strong interest in character rather than plot all the way through to the satisfying final frame (a Kurt Russell could read the phone book and I’d pay to see it It’s great to have him back). “The Art of the Steal” is only 90 minutes long, and never takes itself too seriously or seriously at all. The movie feels light but not in a bad way or anything like that; just in case of “Art of the Steal.” It’s why it works.

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