The Art of the Steal
Director: Jonathan Sobol
Talent: Kurt Russell, Matt Dillon, Jay Baruchel, Katheryn Winnick
Release Date: 20th June 2014
The self-satisfied, noughties, sub-Ocean’s Eleven, All-American heist movie is a genre unto itself, from 21 to Lucky Number Slevin — and, of course, perfected by the transcendent Ocean’s 12 — so it’s hard to see what the uninspired The Art of the Steal thinks it’s bringing to the table, besides perhaps the dredged-up, painful memory of finding freeze-frame character introductions (‘The Muscle’! ‘The Wheels’! ‘The Horror’!) inherently cool back when you were a teenager. Jonathan Sobol’s ensemble crime caper falls flat on its ass for two reasons: 1) its ensemble — complete with Canadian man Kenneth Welsh’s comedy Irishman ‘Uncle Paddy’ in a central role — is total shit, and 2) it’s been released in actual multiplexes, as opposed to petrol station DVD racks circa 2005. Its central conceit involves the forging of a Seurat masterpiece, but this is a forgery of something of distinctly less worth: a bricolage of contemporary cinematic banality, an adolescent sigh.
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
