User reviews

Another heist movie with a little bit of humor. Why not? If I had to choose between the Ocean's heist movies and The Art of the Steal I would go for this one. It's basically the same, a heist explained by a narrating voice, but this time with a touch of humor. Not that you will laugh a lot or so, well at least I didn't, but it was an easy movie to watch. Not too much complicated entertainment for a laid back movie night. The cast is good, the conversations between the two brothers played by Russell and Dillon are fun to watch. In the middle of the movie I thought it was going down a bit but the end saved it all. There are enough good twists to make this movie better then the average heist movie.

I decided to review this one because some of the other reviews are slightly miss leading. I do not pretend in any way to be a film critic... Just your every day regular movie goer/watcher, and as such I must admit I really really enjoyed this one. It has enough twists and turns to keep you hooked till the end and delivers a nice sense of humor throughout the whole movie. Yes, maybe the movie did try a bit too much to be a type of Guy Ritchie meets Ocean's Eleven, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's bad, and I wouldn't say it failed at it either. Bottom line, if you are considering watching it don't think it over too much, go for it and enjoy it, I guarantee it'll have you hooked into the first 10 minutes.

Motorcycle rider Crunch Calhoun (Kurt Russell) is in a crew with his half-brother Nicky Calhoun (Matt Dillon), Paddy MacCarthy (Kenneth Welsh), and forger Guy (Chris Diamantopoulos). Their mark is Stash Bartkowiak who had a stolen Gauguin from an Oslo gallery. They are discovered and Nicky rats out Crunch. Seven years in a Polish prison (5 1/2 with good behavior) later, Crunch is out and out of crime for good. He's daredevil motorcycle riding working with his girlfriend Lola (Katheryn Winnick) and apprentice Francie Tobin (Jay Baruchel). Interpol Agent Bick (Jason Jones) is after a stolen Seurat with the help of informant Samuel Winter (Terence Stamp). Nicky outsmarts them and double cross Sunny who then threatens Crunch for his money. Crunch is pulled back in with Nicky.

There are too many capers and too many complicated expositions. Writer/director Jonathan Sobol has pack this in with so many characters. It's a lower grade Guy Ritchie in Canada. He is starting to solidify his style along with 'A Beginner's Guide to Endings'. However this is a little bit too ambitious for him. Dillon-Russell anchors it with a complicated cute relationship. There are some funny bits, some fun dialog, and a whole lot of fun-like wacky. There is a particularly funny art piece. In the end, it just needs more comedy and a more simplified story.

The Art of the Steal doesn't have the class of Ocean's Eleven, Guy Ritchie's eccentric bad boys, nor does it have the wry wit of In Bruges, but it does have enough enthusiasm, convoluted plot, split- screen framing, and seasoned cast anchored by Kurt Russell and Terence Stamp to make this dead-zone time of movie year bearable until May.

This religious texts heist, however, does have some class—art to be specific—and the Seurat original, along with some Mona Lisa recollections, is the main object of the crime. Russell's Crunch Calhoun and Matt Dillon's half-brother Nicky do one last heist, a thriller mainstay that promises much will go wrong before the denouement. Writer- director Jonathan Sobol's double-crosses and cocky hooligans last to the twisted end for a real "last" one.

With Jay Baruchel playing the greenhorn, and therefore the vulnerable part of the plan, fun ensues as he questions the sanity of the plan's convoluted steps. Even more fun is watching a deadpan Terence Stamp play a federal informer whose British accent and considerable knowledge of art inform every suspenseful moment with the exotic, the cultural, and the dangerous.

Part of the joy is trying to figure out where his character fits in with the lawful and the unlawful. Not happy, however, is the over-the-top reactions of Jason Jones' Interpol agent, Bick. Blame director Jonathan Sobol for not seeing the chasm between this sophomoric performance and Stamp's nuanced turn.

Kurt Russell has been in showbiz for at least a half century, and while his face shows some wear, his actorly sensibilities are sharply delivered in a film whose comic moments and frequent plot twists offer a brief respite in a waning but still ornery winter.

Just saw the movie. It was a very decent movie. You do expect the actors to do what they were suppose to do. Kurt's Elvis was a bit copied from 3000 miles but rest was good. Comedy was good. One thing that was sh*t was the score, I wish they had some better people in music department. Jay was what he is in every movie, a excited kid, which was a bit boring. Rest of the guys were up to it. But the movie is worth watching. To be honest the only thing movie lacks is the major finance, which I believe kills the new idea. I would still thing that it is worth a watch and to be criticized on, But a very good effect.

Plz do watch and decide for yourself.

The heist genre is old, so what is new and worth watching about this particular heist movie? The jokes. They are really sharp, fast, original and witty. And those jokes are delivered by a bunch of great actors: Matt Dillon, Kurt Russell and a delightful cool, calm and collected Terence Stamp. They all act really good.

The story is tight and fast moving and funny. Kurt Russell plays a gangster in need of money. Well, that´s news! He desperately needs money though and that's the reason he agrees to do an impossibly difficult heist. Will he succeed anyway?

Any bad? It's a bit too clever for the sake of wanting to be clever. And it's still a copycat of Ocean's Eleven, but an enjoyable copycat...

It seems like forever since I saw Kurt Russell in something. I almost thought he was retired. Then I saw this at my local theater and realized Kurt is still rocking the old Snake Plissken hair style. That's OK, caused it works for him, and despite sporting the hair do for more than thirty years, it makes him look young and vibrate. As the title suggest, Kurt plays an experience thief. More precise he's Crunch Calhoun, a wheel man in a crew that also has his half-brother, Nicky Calhoun played by Matt Dillon as a member and Idea man. On their last Heist, Nicky gets caught and rats on his brother to stay out of Jail.After serving his time, Crunch becomes a struggling daredevil who gets pulled back into the game by his no good brother, who stumbles upon the ultimate Art Heist. That's how the title of the film doubles its cleverness, their a crew of experience art thieves, but that's where the cleverness really stops. I don't know if it's because everyone played their roles so dead on or because everyone was phoning in their performances for a pay check, but the film is way too predictable. The film follows the heist formula to the letter, and attempts to throw you off the scent, particularly with Jay Baruchel's character Francie, a thief who befriends Crunch at a time when the man was living on the up and up, and Katheryn Winnick who plays Crunch's girlfriend, Lola whose character's agenda could have kept me on the edge of my seat caused of a semi-love Triangle she created between Crunch and Nicky, but her character would have needed to be more developed to accomplish that. With the exception of Lola, The movie stands mostly on how interesting the actors made the characters they played. Watching them interact with each other was the best part. Like with veteran actor, Terrance Stamp playing a paroled ex-art thief force to work with a bumbling Interpol agent assigned to catch the crew doing something wrong in order to win his freedom. It is worth taking a gander at just to see Russell (and his hair), pal around with some interesting characters played by some decent actors, but it's nothing to go out of your way to see.

There were a ton of great suprises with this one! The one liner jabs were priceless...the scenes that made you jump were terrific...just a great movie all around. The only crticism I have us the ending...very soft ending. I think they could've given that a better shot.

'THE ART OF THE STEAL': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Buddy heist comedy flick starring an ensemble cast headed by Kurt Russell. Matt Dillon, Jay Baruchel, Chris Diamantopoulos, Kenneth Welsh, Katheryn Winnick, Jason Jones and Terence Stamp all costar in it. It was written and directed by Jonathan Sobol (who also performed both duties on the 2010 comedy flick 'A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ENDINGS') and tells the story of a veteran art thief who's betrayed by his brother, and sent to prison for over five years, and then reluctantly reteams with him on a new heist (when he gets out). I found the movie to be entertaining enough, even if it seems like something I've seen dozens of times before.

Russell stars as Crunch Calhoun, a longtime criminal who's betrayed by his partner and brother, Nicky (Dillon), on a heist in which Nicky is caught by the police. Crunch is sentenced to seven-years in prison but gets out in five-and-a-half due to good behavior. When he's released he takes up work as a motorcycle stunt driver and takes on an apprentice named Francie (Baruchel) and a beautiful young girlfriend named Lola (Winnick). When times get really tough he decides to do another heist with his old team, including Nicky, after some persuasion. He of course doesn't trust Nicky and seemingly rightfully so. As they plot to steal a priceless book Crunch's team is also being watched by two interpol agents (Jones and Stamp).

The highlight of the movie is just watching all of the cast having a blast together. The film is not exceptionally well directed or brilliantly written (on any level) but the actors are all so perfectly cast that you care about the characters and just have a ton of fun watching them have fun together. It's great to see Russell in the type of role that he's most famous for again and his supporting cast couldn't be more fitting. There's even a highly entertaining blooper reel, at the end, to leave you in a really positive mood! The movie is unoriginal and the twists aren't all that great but it is entertaining even so.

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I didn't go into this with high hopes: it didn't have a good rating, I'd never heard of it, and it was in the backwaters of Netflix. But I was surprised by the quality of this movie. It definitely had a few flaws, but overall a good experience. A nice, somewhat expected, twist, that flowed well and had near flawless execution. The acting was fairly good.

Seldom writing reviews, but this one deserved it... just because it got such a low rating.... the movie fulfills the promise of the genre - it's a heist movie, with a bit of comedy in it, and actually funny comedy... and it has interesting plot, with good twist... the acting could be better, the camera could be better, the story could have been better...everything could have been better, but then it would be another movie. This movie deserves higher rating, if for no other reason, then just because it delivers the promised. it s not a masterpiece, it s just a good movie to watch when you want to be entertained... not many movies these days do so, so i must say: bravo,finally!

Just caught this on TV by chance. At first I was a wee bit skeptical, but it seemed kinda interesting, so I stuck with it, and I enjoyed it. Mostly.

Just gonna get the problems out of the way first.. Accents. There are french accents, and Irish accents, and English accents here, and why are none of the actors with accents actually from the country their accents are from? (not that I can see, anyway) That I can't figure out. Because, well, for the most part they do OK, but here and there you notice something is a little off.

Also, why not just get people that are the real deal? Or just drop the accents. Actors faking accents is so.. uhm, I don't know, what they did in the old days. It's like, typical Hollywood-ignorance. (the viewers won't notice, nooo) Anyway!

Also, without spoiling, there are some stuff here that is wildly unrealistic. It has to do with paining, and time. (I know, because I paint myself) but I won't say more.

This is a heist movie, and a pretty entertaining one. I liked Kurt Russel, and I liked Matt Damon. I liked most of it, really. The accent thing is just a minor annoyance. The story good. It's nothing too special visually, but gets the job done. There are a couple of slightly artistic "story-telling" sequences, that I enjoyed. Nice to switch it up a little.

It's R-rated, so we are treated to some swearing. I like that. It's 90 minutes, (heist-movies tend to be long, which can be a drag) so it's short and pretty sweet.

And I's ain't not gonna go on and on about it. I liked it.

Watched it over web and pretty late. From the very start to the very end, you will find it a sloppy, half size, with stupid pull off's and a cheap version of Oceans eleven.

Just watch if there is nothing better to see in the option list. If you missed it, you wont miss anything.

What a great ride!

I'm Canadian, and nothing kills me more (being a Canadian) than saying that there is an undeniably 'crappy' feel to most, if not all, Canadian productions. That being said, this movie was actually really good. Great performances from most of the cast, really great to see Kenneth Welsh and Terence Stamp adding some credibility to whole thing.

As far as heist movies go, this one is fairly typical but the production/editing really pull it together. Kurt Russell does a great job along with Baruchel and Winnick and my usual aversion to Matt Dillon was even kept in check to some degree. Nice little twist-up at the end even if it was somewhat predictable. Also Some pretty funny scenes and exchanges, especially if you watch the outtakes in the credits.

All in all a great film with a surprisingly good feel.

Unexpected outcome, I just randomly watched it without looking it up, it starts you enjoy it and then you laugh for a while and then you pause it. (Which I did) and then you resume and don't stop till you finished it all.

Because it gets a bit slow at some point and if you're not into the film or don't know where it's headed you tend to lose focus but if you stick around, you get to see some entertainment.

I mean some funny entertainment. It has a good plot, you second guess things and their is this air of a major mess up that you can't shake, it's like you know things are going well but there has to be something that will mess up.

That keeps things interesting. Overall, it was far better than expected. Worth watching at least once.

Humor may or may not work for everyone.

It is far better than what I have expected from seeing the IMDb score and reading the reviews. There is certainly more to this movie than what you would normally think.

The story itself is not very original. Simple retelling of caper story clichés. Healthy dose of humor and interesting storytelling keeps you from giving up halfway through the film. Just don't expect much depth or details. Most of the action and interesting stuff happens later. Almost at the very end.

Kurt Russell seems to be better than usual. I always liked him as an actor, but thought he isn't capable of making a good performance since the beginning of noughties.

This was WAAAAYYYY better than what I thought it was going to be. There are very few movies I don't like of Kurt Russell's but the rest of the cast was pretty awesome too. The comedy part that stood out to me was the banter of Terence Stamp. Funny stuff there!

If you like Jay Baruchel's acting, you'll get some great scenes with him too. Especially when he had the beard on at the border crossing. Wasn't any nudity that I could think of which is always a bummer but good for the kids. While not action packed like Italian Job or movies of the sort, it was still a great watch. Definitely stay for the end credits as there are some out takes.