Honest Thief [DVD]

Great home movies

Really enjoyed this film. Non-stop with twists and turns from beginning to end. Nothing like a Blu-ray on a 75" Sony .... with surround sound and a really good story and excellent acting ....

I can see this happening. With the hot mess that the FBI, NSA and other alphabet agencies are, it would be terrible and sad but not surprising. It's a sober concern that some day it might happen to me or someone I know. It's possible and that's scary. Miscarriages of justice are terrifying and often, almost impossible to escape. If you're a criminal who's put in the hard work and just wants nothing more than to go straight and be with the ones you love? It's almost impossible to look to people like the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. There are a few good agents but Russian Roulette is a bad idea for a good reason. Liam was great. Jeffrey was so much fun, deeply empathetic, appropriately comedic and the DOG!! That is one hell of an actor dog. The writing and directing was so clean it made my writer's heart sing. No wokepoke. No angstporn. No porn. No gratuitous violence, although keep in mind this IS a frame-up movie with a violent Feeb, so there is some fair-sized brutality, just not gratuitous. Car chases, one explosion, fist fights. Wonderful and exhilarating to watch.

So it's typical cookie cutter Hollywood and predictable. It had more than a few flaws. Even I know that three million is going to be more then the two or three boxes they took. It certainly wasn't the nine million. They would have needed a bigger car.So it had flaws and Liam Neeson has deadpan acting skills kinda like Harrison Ford you get the same "character" every movie.I enjoyed it like I enjoy Die Hard movies and Liam played the same dark hero as "TAKEN" movies and why not. It seems to be a good fit for him.

Doesn’t Liam Neeson always! He’s a safe cracking whiz, bomb guy, electrician, car thief, and apparently one of those movie stars who stands at intersections with a cardboard sign: Will Act for Money!So now we know what Neeson does between installments of the “Taken” franchise. This one’s a routine chase/revenge movie with a ridiculous premise and a few car chases. At the climax, as in so many thrillers, everybody shoots everybody else for no clearly defined reason. In between, Neeson has a go at the lengthiest, most overwrought exposition scene yet, where he explains why he robs banks. Not because that’s where the money is, but because his dad got a raw deal.Also starring Jeffrey Donavan as that guy where you say, “Hey! Guy Pearce!” Only then you realize it’s not the real Guy Pearce, but that other guy who had that spy show. The poor man’s Guy Pearce. And Jai Courtney and Anthony Ramos, from the late period Terminator movies and the like. And Robert Patrick as a guest corpse!Also, Kate Walsh as the only woman in the movie. She has lines, if no agency. She’s around to be menaced, assaulted, kidnapped and variously threatened, so as to give Neeson a reason to use that particular set of skills. A thankless part, I’d say. So, thanks, Kate Walsh, that was very adequate. The minimum required amount of vulnerability. Way too young for the increasingly craggy Neeson, of course.Neeson himself looks perpetually exhausted, like he really did have to Run All Night while avoiding being Taken. This inexpensive little cops ‘n’ robbers should be like vacation for him, but he lays the world-weariness on trowel-thick.So, Neeson is a bank robber with a heart of gold, robs only for social justice, decides to mend his ways and turn himself in when he meets a woman half his age. As one does. In my opinion, if you want to do a safecracker movie, crack some safes. The tension and the visuals are all in the mechanics. See “Thief” with James Caan as the technician who has to do One Last Job. He’s great and the movie is one spectacular visual after the next. Michael Mann directed rings around the workmanlike Mark Williams here.Neeson cracks only the one safe, and that with minimal fuss, and then it’s off to the car chases.Not terrible car chases, although I think the director/writer/producer Williams missed an opportunity with the donut truck chase. How can you have a van full of donuts collide with things and not have a great spew of multicolor pastries? It’s like dodging a fruit cart at the last second. We wanted to see those crullers fly!The plot is a sieve of holes, the performances are adequate, the sleazy bad agents do their best to maintain an air of menace, and while it does seem as if several scenes were completely cut out (Liam hot wiring a car but then what about the steering column lock? Or spiriting Kate out of the hospital with nobody noticing. Liam creeping around bad agent’s house planting bombs. And just how the bad agents explained not rendering aid to their fallen comrade or calling in or being placed on administrative leave after firing their weapons or disappearing for days on end, none of that stuff is alluded to. And just was well, since it keeps the running time down to a tidy 90 minutes, enough for a session on the elliptical without taxing the brain or bladder.And, although it’s set in Boston (where all banks are robbed and all Afflecks are bank robbers), nobody attempts a cah chase through Hahvahd Yahd. Accents are left alone, which is just as well. Isn’t Annie Wilkins a character in a Stephen King? Or am I misremembering?Recommend it? It’s OK for what it is. Mildly entertaining, keeps things moving, has some car chases and a house blows up real good. None of it makes a lick of sense, but Neeson could do this sort of movie in his sleep, and may well have done this time.

Liam Neeson is excellent in this film (as he always is in all the films he stars in). The supporting cast is very good also and together they provide you with a good escape that we all can use right now. Forget the negative reviews. Way too often when I read the negatives I see people who suffer from the condition called paralysis by analysis. Just watch it and stop trying to analyze it to death.The only thing I found difficult to believe in this film was a thief that had successfully stolen $10 million dollars from the system now deciding to give it all back. Nah, not in this life, even for love. Think of how your love and you could live on all those millions. Some secluded island somewhere, you get my point.Really though, this was a good escape for my Wife and I and another one that Liam can put on his resume of successful films.

This is a great old school movie that takes you back to 2000's. It reminds you of other great movies such as Die Hard where the main character gets away with as much as he wants. In this movie Liam Neeson reminds us why he is a great actor. Liam is in control in every scene. If you are not into having a fully detailed movie with lot's of explanations and no plot holes then you will enjoy watching this. It is very fictional in the sense that situations that occur in the film would never happen like that in the real world. It's a movie after all and very decent for a casual audience.