''The Good Thief'' is a 2002 British-French

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

written and directed by

Neil Jordan Neil Patrick Jordan (born 25 February 1950) is an Irish film director, screenwriter, novelist and short-story writer. His first book, ''Night in Tunisia (short story collection), Night in Tunisia'', won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian ...

. It is a remake of the French film ''

Bob le flambeur ''Bob le flambeur'' (English translation": "Bob the Gambler" or "Bob the High Roller") is a 1956 French heist gangster film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and starring Roger Duchesne as Bob. It is often considered both a film noir and a pre ...

'' (1955) by

Jean-Pierre Melville Jean-Pierre Melville (; born Jean-Pierre Grumbach; 20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973) was a French filmmaker and actor. Among his films are ''Le Silence de la mer'' (1949), '' Bob le flambeur'' (1956), ''Le Doulos'' (1962), '' Le Samouraï'' (19 ...

. The film, shot in both

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

and Nice, France, follows a heroin-addicted retired thief through the setup and completion of one last job.

Cast

Nick Nolte Nicholas King Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is an American actor. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1991 film ''The Prince of Tides''. He received ...

as Bob Montagnet *

Emir Kusturica Emir Kusturica ( sr-cyrl, Емир Кустурица; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and musician. He also has French citizenship.http://www.serbia.com/emir-kusturica-artist-builder-and-anti-glo ...

as Vladimir * Nutsa Kukhianidze as Anne *

Tchéky Karyo Tchéky Karyo (; born 4 October 1953) is a French actor and musician of Turkish origin. Beginning his career as an actor on stage in classical and contemporary works, he began to work as a character actor in films in the 1980s. He has acted in nu ...

as Roger *

Saïd Taghmaoui Saïd Taghmaoui (born 19 July 1973) is a French-American actor and screenwriter. One of his major screen roles was that of Saïd in the 1995 French film ''La Haine'', directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Taghmaoui has also appeared in a number of En ...

as Paulo * Patricia Kell as Yvonne *

Gérard Darmon Gérard Darmon (born 29 February 1948) is a French- Moroccan actor and singer. Personal life He was the second husband of actress Mathilda May (mother of his two youngest children). He has three children: Virginie (born 1968) and, by May, daug ...

as Raoul * Julien Maurel as Philippe * Sarah Bridges as Philipa *

Ralph Fiennes Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shak ...

as Tony Angel (''uncredited'')

Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews. Critic Roger Ebert notes of Nolte: "it is clear that he was born to play Bob. It is one of those performances that flows unhindered from an actor's deepest instincts." Reviewer Pam Grady, writing for Reel.com, also praised the film: "''The Good Thief'' has many virtues, beginning with the sheer wit of Jordan's screenplay and Chris Menges's neon-saturated cinematography that renders Nice both beautiful and sinister, trapping the characters in the glare of its lights. The heist itself is a complicated affair — Jordan took Melville's original idea and added a distinctly 21st-century twist — and all the more satisfying for it." The film holds 'fresh' rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on reviews, and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Bolstered by Nolte's strong performance, ''The Good Thief'' brims with seductive style." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by

Elliot Goldenthal Elliot Goldenthal (born May 2, 1954) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and film and theatrical scores. A student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, he is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Good Thief, The 2002 films 2000s crime drama films 2002 crime thriller films 2000s heist films British crime drama films British crime thriller films British remakes of French films British heist films French crime drama films French crime thriller films Remakes of French films French heist films Irish crime drama films Irish crime thriller films Canadian crime drama films Canadian crime thriller films Fox Searchlight Pictures films 2000s English-language films English-language Canadian films English-language French films English-language Irish films Films about organized crime in France Films based on works by Auguste Le Breton Films directed by Neil Jordan Films scored by Elliot Goldenthal Films set in France Films set on the French Riviera Films shot in France Films shot in Monaco British neo-noir films French neo-noir films 2002 drama films 2000s Canadian films 2000s British films 2000s French films