Introduction
The Good Thief was filmed in Monaco and Nice in 2002. It’s a British French crime comedy and follows a heroin and gambling-addicted retired thief as he sets up his last big score, a massive heist of a Monte Carlo Casino. It stars Nick Nolte as Robert Bob Montague, Ryan Phillipe, Gary Oldman and other big-names.
The Main Story
Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief is distinctive amongst heist films as it offers all the right ingredients, namely lust, greed, bad luck and plain stupidity all colliding to ruin a well thought out heist. The film starts with Bob’s (Nick Nolte) ambling around the South of France broke and as high as a kite and slandering the young criminals surrounding his orbit.
That all changes when one of Bob’s crew informs him of a new score: a Monte Carlo Casino with millions worth of the world’s greatest paintings on its walls. However, these are duplicates and the originals are stored in a secure vault in a nearby building.
Bob plans to fool the police into thinking he’s there to rob the casino while he is robbing the building next door. This was back before the internet days of best online casinos australia remember. It was all bricks and mortar. Bob needs to assemble a diverse crew of hackers, safe crackers and diggers to pull this off. The police are keeping a close eye on Bob, and he is aware of that so he decides to play in the casino while his crew tunnel their way into the room.
The Ending
Things begin to fall apart as one of the crew shoots a man, another tells the wrong people too much, and Bob finds himself in massive debt to a vicious fence. Surprisingly not all works out for everyone in the end, and Bob enjoys an unexpected streak of luck at the tables. It’s an uplifting ending, for a heist film.
Croupier is a 1998 dark British movie set in the sinister and shadowy 1970s. It was directed by Mike Hodges and starred Clive Owen.
Croupier focuses on a struggling writer employed at a Casino as a croupier and strategically placed between the pit bosses and the bettors. It’s the movie that launched Clive Owen’s career.
The Main Story
Jack (Clive Owens) depicts a man damaged by his gambling father, a drunk and a womanizer. His father gets him a job as a croupier at a London casino. Jack soon becomes a skilled card manipulator with complete indifference to the player’s losses and wins and it’s only for as long as their shifts last.
Owens depicts a cold, controlled man who doesn’t gamble; however, he does not gamble at casino games of chance, but he places high-risk bets in his personal life.
Jack writes a book about an unfeeling croupier who gets a kick out of watching gamblers lose at the tables. The book was, in essence, based on his own life.
Over the years he gets drawn into the seedy side of the casino world of cheating, drinking and sleeping around.
The Ending
By the end of the movie, he juggles relationships with three women whilst scheming to defraud the casino.
Towards the end of the movie, Jack finishes his book and gets it published anonymously. It becomes a bestseller, but he continues to work as a croupier and live in his basement flat. He didn’t even buy himself a new car.
Croupier is a gambling movie with a twist and viewers get more than they bargained for with its unexpected ending. The message people take away with them in Croupier is about individuals trying to control and anticipate the odds of their lives similar to gamblers who are always trying to beat the odds.
Intro
Lost in America was released in March 1985 and it’s classed as a satirical road comedy film directed by Albert Brooks who also plays the lead, David Howard. Lost in America starts Brooks alongside Julie Hagerty as his wife. It’s about a couple who both decide to quit their jobs and travel across America.
The Main Story
Howard is snubbed at his advertising job in Los Angeles and convinces his wife Linda to quit hers as well and join him on a cross country road trip. They liquidate their assets and leave in a Winnebago on a journey in the hope of finding themselves and discovering America.
All does not go as planned; they stop in Vegas where they lose their life savings at a Roulette table and sees David trying his best to convince the casino manager to return their money as a publicity stunt.
They have nowhere to go and finally arrive in Arizona where David unsuccessfully applies for a pharmacy delivery job. He eventually has no choice but to go to employment agencies where he is reminded that he was fired from his high paying job in advertising; hence cannot be picky and choosy when it comes to jobs. He reluctantly accepts a position as a crossing guard at a local school where he gets taunted daily. Linda finds a job as an assistant manager at a fast-food takeout joint, working under a person half her age.
The Ending
The film highlights the beginning and end of a dream and how gambling led them to living in a trailer park almost broke and working dead-end jobs. They finally decide to go back to their old lifestyle where David is rehired at his old Ad Company with a pay cut but better dental care.
