By Bryce Casselman

The best way that I can describe Bandits, the new movie by producer Barry Levinson (A Perfect Storm, Sphere) is to think of the most obsessive-compulsive nerd from your high school, team him up with the coolest guy in school and then send them on one of the most successful chain of bank robberies in the history of the country.

The movie begins with Bruce Willis (Unbreakable, The Whole Nine Yards) and Billy Bob Thornton (South of Heaven, West of Hell, A Simple Plan) who unexpectedly break out of prison and rob a bank using a yellow highlighter. The pair continues to rob banks to keep the cash flow coming in and planning to ultimately end up running a resort in their very own tropical paradise.

The unlikely twosome soon develop a creative style to robbing banks by kidnapping the next target's bank executive the night before the hit and staying the night in their house. The twosome becomes a threesome when their lives take an uncalculated turn as Thornton's character is literally rundown by a neurotic, upper-class housewife, played by Cate Blanchett (The Gift, The Talented Mr. Ripley).

The two men ultimately fall for the beautiful and free-spirited woman. She loves Willis' character, who is tough, but centered, taking the lead in the robberies and of the team and spouting off Zen wisdom from books that he doesn't and probably will never understand. She also loves Thornton's character because he is sensitive, smart and understands her needs, besides the fact that he is a hopeless hypochondriac.

As news of the bank robberies begins to spread, it becomes increasingly more difficult for the now dubbed Sleepover Bandits to stay unrecognized and the situations they find themselves in become stickier and stickier.

This movie is 100 percent character driven, relying heavily on the dialogue between the main characters as they banter themselves through difficult situations. From an acting standpoint, Billy Bob Thornton stole the show in this film with a wonderfully funny physical performance and fine-tuned, consistent timing.

I give Bandits Four Stars because it is one of the freshest movies I've seen in a long time and I would recommend it to people in the mood to laugh their butts off.

MS
MS

September 1998
October 1998

January 1999
February 1999
March 1999
April 1999
September 1999
October 1999
November 1999
December 1999

January 2000
February 2000
March 2000
April 2000
May 2000
June 2000
July 2000
August 2000
September 2000
October 2000
November 2000
December 2000

January 2001
February 2001
March 2001
April 2001
May 2001
June 2001
July 2001
August 2001
September 2001
October 2001