I've been told by a trusted source that the script for this picture was a nightmare that required numerous rewrites right up through the filming process. That may be true and if so, it's a good thing they hired top notch actors to make something of this movie. This is clearly a case where quality acting manages to raise mediocre material to a higher level. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the film but that's probably the best that can be said.
 Bandits follows the adventures of two escaped convicts, Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thornton). They come up with a fantasy of building themselves a nightclub in Acapulco and living like kings. To follow that dream they need money. Being bankrobbers by trade they decide to go with their strong suit and hold up some banks. But Terry hits upon an interesting notion to sidestep the usual problems in robbing a bank. He wants to pick a bank in the middle of nowhere, case it, learn who the manager is and then kidnap that person the night before the robbery. This way they can enter the bank in the morning before the security guards, tellers or customers show up. As an added bonus they don't need to worry about alarms either.
They pick their first location and hire Joe's cousin Harvey as their driver. The heist goes off fairly smoothly and they go their separate ways to hide for a couple weeks until the heat is off. On the way to meeting back up with Joe and Harvey, Terry runs out of gas. When he returns to his car with a gas can he finds it being inspected by a cop. Terry runs off and tries to flag down a passing car for a ride. Unfortunately for him, said car is driven by an emotionally distraught woman by the name of Kate (Cate Blanchett). Barely paying attention to the road she hits Terry and then to add insult to injury, smacks him in the head with car door. She tries to take him to a doctor, driving like a total lunatic and doesn't even bat an eye when he pulls a gun on her in an attempt to make her stop. She ends up driving him to the meeting place because he doesn't know what else to do. And thus Kate joins their merry band of thieves.
Joe quickly falls for Kate and then predictably so does Terry which creates the sort of awful love triangle that derailed Pearl Harbor earlier this year. This one has a similar, though somewhat less damaging effect on the story. The early parts of the movie featuring Joe and Terry on the run and making their first robbery are quite lively and entertaining. The pace slows considerably though when romance arrives for all three of them.
The movie seems to be trying to steal elements from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Odd Couple and Pulp Fiction. Joe and Terry are a wildly mismatched pairing who succeed because of it. Joe is angry and dangerous, yet an absolute charmer with the ladies. Terry is very bright but also very neurotic and a hypochondriac. The story is told in a time shifting manner, bouncing back between the future, past and present. It gets a tad confusing at first but does eventually tie back together in a neat bow. The camera work is largely hand held, giving the films a psuedo-documentary feel.
For all the bells and whistles of the plot and the style of the movie, it's the acting that makes it work. Blanchett is, as usual, an amazing actress who creates wildly different characters for each movie she's in. Her Kate is seriously unbalanced, yet somehow charming. She's full of little nervous ticks and worries that make her fascinating to watch, no matter what hoops the plot is jumping through. The movie's best line describes her perfectly, "She's an iceberg waiting for the Titanic." Willis is cool, calm and at the drop of a hat, violently dangerous. His character is never ruffled or nervous, except of course by Kate. This is the kind of character he excels at and this movie is no exception. Thornton is fun to watch as well, constantly battling a staggering array of imagined symptoms, not to mention trying to keep up with Joe.
For all the great work of the actors, the movie's uneven pacing tends to sap the energy out of the story. The bank robberies are fun, riddled with quick pacing and truly awful disguises. The problem arrives with the love triangle as we soon find whole scenes that drag as if in molasses. To add to that problem there are moments when time flow in the movie is impossible to gauge, causing the viewer confusion that momentarily takes them out of the movie. But then another robbery occurs and we get some more fun and then it's back to romance and the brakes are back on the movie. This is a comedy and when allowed to work as a comedy it succeeds nicely. There are moments intermixed with the comedy where some drama was clearly desired by the filmmakers and it comes at the great expense of the comedy. Possibly the movie's worst scene shows the group standing on a beach shooting of fireworks. The only conceivable purpose to this scene is to give them a chance to include the U2 song they got for the soundtrack.
The movie eventually comes to a wild ending where just about every element from the earlier parts of the film is brought to bear. Unfortunately the movie gives up its secrets too early, making it painfully easy to guess what is going on ahead of time. I suspect some careful editing to hide a few details would have yielded an ending with more surprise and thus more impact.
This is a movie that features some wonderful acting that almost succeeds in hiding the large flaws in story and editing. If those other elements had been better addressed this really could have been one of the year's better films.
- John Shea
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