Art Heist (2004) Reviews

• Ariel views of Barcelona are the best part...

  zsk2006-10-29

  OK - the helicopter shots are fantastic, and the director made good use of some of Barcelona's top sights. Otherwise...production value was blown in the first few minutes and the rest of the film felt like a movie of the week. Ellen Pompeo was charming and fun to watch, Abel Folk had the most depth and was very effective, and William Baldwin was...well, William Baldwin. He got to put his martial art training to good use and be a running-jumping-earnest action figure. The rest of the cast was wooden at best, but mostly paper. So - if you're nostalgic about Spain - it's a picture postcard with an action twist, and a healthy dose of El Greco. If not, skip it.

• First it's one "Aha, this is what this films all about". The second comes the shock and last the awe at how people spend money on sad productions like this!!!

  erikstee2005-04-14

  Baldwin has really stooped low to make such movies. The script, the music, just about everything in this movie is a waste of time. The sound FX do not sound real, they stick out way too much (technical gadgets etc.) If they are trying to make a movie about things like this, at least try to get real with it and drop those extra bleeps and beeps, because those gadgets don't really make loud sounds like that. Natural sounds like footsteps and such are non-existent, which gives it a void-like atmosphere. Directing seems to be OK for such a low budget film (I sure hope it was a low budget production), although it does seem fairly amateurish at times. Most characters seem empty and false, they simply haven't casted this movie very well. I'd imagine it would've been a better idea to make Baldwin speak some Spanish than to make Spanish actors speak English, when we all know that theirs is the language which is more vibrant and alive, that is why the actors performance can suffer greatly if an odd language is used. I mean, could finally someone realise how stupid it sounds to make international actors speak English with a bad accent? It's should've a long ago buried corpse in movie production. The production team ever heard of subtitles? This movie again manages to depict European police as lazy and corrupt, the societies as vulnerable and helpless. I mean if the plot again goes like "The Interpol can't do jack, so let's call one American to bring down this international syndicate" or whatever. Sony Pictures treads on the same path as Columbia before it, just producing movies for the hell of it. I'd imagine them to have some self respect also. Are buyers supposed to buy every dirty title just because Sony puts out something good a few times a year?! Maybe they should've used the same team as who were making Di Que Si - Say I Do. It's spoken in Spanish and Paz Vega and Santi Millan do a decent job keeping the movie afloat. Looks and sounds much better! Come on Sony, wake up, produce less, sell more.

• clueless in barcelona

  jayalst2005-10-09

  one may ask why? the characters snarl, yell, and chew the scenery without any perceptible reason except someone wanted to make a movie in barcelona. billie baldwin, is that the right one?, is forgettable in the cop/estranged-husband/loving-father-of-cute-little-blond-girl role. the story seems to have been cut and pasted from the scenes thrown away from adventure films in the last three years. ellen pompeo's lack of charisma is a black hole that seems to suck the energy out of every scene she is in. her true acting range is displayed when she takes her blouse off as the movies careens from one limp chase scene to another. unfortunately, the directing rarely goes bad enough to be camp or a parody. it is all just cliché, familiar in every respect. the director cast his own daughter as the precocious brat probably because no respectable agent would have permitted a client to ruin a career by being in such a lame, contrived and uninteresting movie. the only heist here is the theft of the investor's money and the viewer's time.

• Sadly predictable

  Dr_Coulardeau2008-12-23

  Apart from the use of Mozart's Requiem, and apart from the evanescent vision of some of the most famous and beautiful paintings of the classical and baroque era, this film will remain as an entertainment that is so predictable that all pleasure is nullified. We know practically all the time what is going to happen because the timing in the film itself prevents this or that culprit to be the real one, especially since a Russian cannot be a master mind. That has to be a good old cool American and of course the one who is most over suspicion. We practically know when the phone is going to ring and who is going to be on it, etc. A lot better could easily have been done in that field, but television must have been I guess the primary target, and then the teenage summer audience, those who only think of wasting some time in the cool shade of the air-conditioned theater when it is too hot outside for mooching some kisses from girls. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

• Unbearable claptrap of a pseudo-adventure movie

  k9gardner2006-10-12

  First, I realize that a "1" rating is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst. This movie gets that from me because, as one reviewer points out, it's not bad in a self-aware, over-the-top sort of way that might allow it to have some comic or cult value. It simply misses its mark on every count. **Contains possible spoilers** The dialog is completely disingenuous. The continuity is so deliberate it's painful. Daniel just finishes speaking of his lost love, and with his final word the flamenco dancers start. The mock-shock of what's her name (see? I don't even remember her character's name, let alone the name of the forgettable actress) when her husband (the Baldwin) first tells her that her friend is the bad guy. The car and the motorcycle chases did all the right things. Vegetable carts gone flying. Cars crashing into each other. Motorcycles going down the stairs. People nearly being hit, but remarkably, no one is. Oh, that's right... except for the one guy who has been stabbed several times, is obviously stumbling along the curb with knife wounds, and an approaching car apparently didn't notice him there. Hmmm. It's becoming more and more remarkable to me that movies like this can be made. There is so much pressure in the film industry to make money, you'd think that someone in Hollywood would think of making good films worth seeing. Now there's a novel idea. My suggestion: don't see this film. Don't rent the DVD. Don't watch it on cable. There are lots of other things you could be doing that will leave you feeling more satisfied.