Anyway...
An amiable, rambling comedy, Bandits borrows from an astounding array of movies, from Footloose to It Happened One Night. But the movie it really wants to be is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It doesn't reach that height -- few movies do -- but it's an entertaining "popcorn" movie.
It's another sort-of-half-assed movie from director Barry Levinson, like Liberty Heights -- enjoyable, good performances, decent script, but something's missing that keeps it from being on the level of his best work, like Good Morning, Vietnam or Bugsy. You get the feeling he didn't put a tremendous amount of effort into this movie, which is frustrating because it could have been better.
Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) are mismatched, prison-escapee, bank-robbing buddies. As they trundle through picturesque Oregon (briefly saluted in Terry's bizarre, startled, wake-up exclamation, "Beavers and ducks!"), they pick up an accomplice (Troy Garity, who is, incidentally, Jane Fonda's son, although he looks a lot more like a Stallone than like a Fonda) and a hostage (Cate Blanchett) who becomes a love interest.
Thornton is hilarious as the twitchy hypochondriac Terry. Willis relaxes so much into his role as the easy-going Joe that you kind of forget he's Bruce Willis (until Thornton mockingly refers to him as "an action hero"). I could almost see Marisa Tomei doing Blanchett's role as Kate, who's "a little bit slutty and a little bit nutty" (as David Brock memorably but unjustifiably labeled Anita Hill), but fortunately Blanchett expands what could have been a stock girlfriend role into a sort of screwball-comedy dame. (Speaking of screwball comedies, a hint for those of you who aren't cinemaniacs: when Willis says, "I saw this in a movie," the cited movie is It Happened One Night.)
What can I say? Stuff gits wrecked, the boys are charming, no one takes themselves very seriously, and I got loads of freebies at the screening: a Bandits shirt, which should be good for inside the apartment; a Bandits hat, which is really good quality apart from the big red BANDITS across the front; a Bandits postcard, which will look really good in my trashcan; and the actually-very-useful Bandits "Bank Notes" notepad with a $100 bill printed on the back. So, in other words, not a bad way to spend a couple hours.
On the other hand, how much cooler would it have been if they had been pirates instead of boring ol' land bandits? We'll never know.
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