Comedy or drama? Being a lover of crime dramas and reviewing almost all the best presented this subgenre, I began to look for much lower quality products. And so I was lucky, I came across the 1996 film directed by Travis Millow, The Bandit. The plot is simple, but I decided to give this film a chance, hoping that it will surprise me. And he surprised. The truth is not the way I'd like it to be.
The movie begins quite interestingly. The opening scene, though a little spoiler, but nevertheless she manages to intrigue. And then we see what happened just before this opening scene. Three guys, though pathetic, but incredibly cool walk down the street. I quickly realized that they were criminals and went to work. No mistake. Pulling headscarves over their faces, taking out pistols, our heroes break into the bank. And then one of the robbers stands on the table and ... slips on the ashtray, as a result of which he falls, and she flies away in the groin of his comrade. Uh, what? Of course, in the cinema there were images of muggers-dumbs or losers. But what happened in The Bandit is more comedy than crime drama. It doesn’t fit into the film of this genre. But all right, we could close our eyes if our "fairytale" heroes did not continue to screw up so idiotically. And so I had the impression at first that all three were complete imbiciles. And only their further albeit poor, but the disclosure helped me to change my opinion about them (or rather only about two of them, the third was a poorly revealed idiot, so they remained until the end of the film). This is my biggest complaint with this film.
Then we meet our main protagonist. His name is Joe Webster. He wants to fulfill himself and achieve something in life. Joe decided that he liked the life of a criminal, but since you can’t cook porridge with his friends, he decided to leave these idiots and start climbing the criminal ladder on his own, getting a job as a “six” to the local criminal authority. He chose a slightly strange way to get a job with him, but it still works. Slowly but surely, Joe wins the trust of his boss and he gives him a rather responsible task. And of course, Joe takes his friends on it, and that's where the fun starts.
You see, this part starts out in stark contrast to all previous events. Expecting the whole mission to go awry because of these dummies, I was suddenly mistaken. Not that things will go wrong, but that they will. Their fault in the failure was not, moreover, they suddenly became incredibly cool, able to cope with any opponent. This is in stark contrast to the events shown at the beginning of the film. I feel like I’m watching two different movies. I don’t think they should have been funny at the beginning of the movie. You could just make them an ordinary street scum, for example, robbing passers-by, and at the same time that this life suited only friends of Joe, but not himself. I could also add something that would make me believe they were friends, not random accomplices (some flashback about how they met or something). As it turned out, their friendship in the film looked unconvincing, as Joe talked heart-to-heart with only one of his friends (which is not an imbicile), and also turned to them only when he needed their help. Thus, it was possible to make Joe torn between his ambitions and friends, thereby intensifying the drama.
But if you look at the whole story, you can see that it is relatively good. It follows a fairly standard pattern: there is a bandit who wants to break into people; slowly but surely he moves towards this goal; there is a disappointment that ends with a very correct ending, which is logical and at the same time gives the viewer certain food for thought. In addition, the film, although very few elements for a crime drama, but enough for a criminal action movie category B. There are chases and shootings, and they're pretty good (although at times it felt like the movie had a very small budget). Acting is also quite tolerant. Yes, some characters caused irritation, but in general it is clear that all the actors in this film tried, despite their inexperience (if you believe their filmography, for most of the actors of this film, these roles are both debuts and last, they have never played anywhere else).
Thus, Travis Millow made, albeit mediocre, but generally watchable film. Although it feels like a script with huge flaws, as well as a lack of experience of the crew and actors with a small budget, the effort of everyone who had a hand in creating it is still visible. In general, the film is more positive than negative. And so I think that all lovers of crime dramas and second-rate films should still get acquainted with it and appreciate these efforts.