Bandits (2001)

Two bank robbers fall in love with the girl they've kidnapped.

Director:

Barry Levinson

Writer:

Harley Peyton

Stars:

Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bruce Willis	...	Joe Blake
Billy Bob Thornton	...	Terry Collins
Cate Blanchett	...	Kate Wheeler
Troy Garity	...	Harvey Pollard
Brían F. O'Byrne	...	Darill Miller
Stacey Travis	...	Cloe Miller
Bobby Slayton	...	Darren Head
January Jones	...	Claire
Azura Skye	...	Cheri
Peggy Miley	...	Mildred Kronenberg
William Converse-Roberts	...	Charles Wheeler
Richard Riehle	...	Lawrence Fife
Micole Mercurio	...	Sarah Fife
Scott Burkholder	...	Wildwood Policeman
Anthony Burch	...	Phil

Storyline

Two convicts, one charismatic (Willis) and the other a hypochondriac (Thornton), break out of prison and immediately start a bank robbing spree, kidnapping bank managers, spending the night with their families, then going with the managers in the morning to rob the banks. Using a dim-witted stunt man as their getaway driver and lookout, the three successfully pull off several jobs (even gaining the attention of a television show about American criminals), and become known as "The Sleepover Bandits." Things are going great until the bank managers begin to realize that the robbers are non-violent and therefore no threat to them or their employees, changing the game for the Bandits. To add to the complications, a bored & unhappy housewife (Blanchett) ends up in the hands of the criminals, and begins to have romantic feelings for both Willis and Thornton, causing a sticky love triangle.

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Plot Keywords:

cousin cousin relationship | eastern philosophy | bank manager | television | prison | 

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Taglines:

Two's Company, Three's A Crime.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content, language and violence

Details

Official Sites:

Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) [United States] MGMawards.com nominees, reviews [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 October 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

Outlaws

Filming Locations:

Salinas, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$75,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$13,050,700, 14 October 2001, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$41,575,141

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$67,631,903

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Hyde Park Entertainment, Empire Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (CFI)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Terry says his first disguise is an attempt at looking like Neil Young on the album "where he's leaning against a tree." This is the album "Everbody Knows This Is Nowhere."

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Goofs

When Dog does the falling stunt off of his house he is shown falling forward and lands on his back with his head facing the house. When they cut to the angle from the roof he is shown kicking his feet out in front of him and landing with his feet away from the house.

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Quotes

Kate: You can't just step in front of a moving car and expect it to stop!
Terry: Yes you can! I've seen it done!

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Crazy Credits

During the end credits on the left side of the screen, you see 2 events happening: 1) Harvey and Claire (the Pink Boots girl) getting married in Mexico & 2) Some more outtake footage from the bandits' interview with Darren Head.

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Alternate Versions

In an alternate ending, Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett) is holding Joe's (Bruce Willis) and Terry's (Billy Bob Thornton) hands while watching the wedding, and she is pregnant. Letting the viewer speculate which man is the father.

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Connections

Spoofs Sonatine (1993)

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Soundtracks

Just Another
(2000)
Written and Performed by Pete Yorn
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By Arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

Great fun for savvy 'boomer' film buffs ....

As the movie opens Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) are holed up in a downtown LA bank. Naturally Terry is freaking out.

`One last big heist! What a great idea! Joe knows best. And what does Joe get me? Stuck in a bank called the Alamo surrounded by the entire Los Angeles police force.'

How did America's most famous bank robbers get in this mess? Reporting from the scene, tabloid TV host Darren Head (Bobby Slayton) tells viewers the pair visited his home a few nights ago and forced him at gunpoint to film their version of events.

`The result is part soap opera, part crime drama,' he intones, Geraldo-like, ` it's part 'Bonnie and Clyde', it's part Barnum and Bailey.'

Uh oh, I feel a flashback coming on. Sure enough, the movie spools back to the duo's daring escape from an Oregon prison and a subsequent string of bank robberies with Joe's cousin, Harvey (Troy Garity), a wannabe stunt man, acting as getaway driver. Nervous, timid, a hopeless hypochondriac, Terry tends to fret over small details (`I ask him to get me a good mustache and he gets me something that looks as if it came out of a Cracker Jack box.') Joe, on the other hand, is cucumber cool, whether sweet-talking a lady or stealing her car. Of course, he can be a tad impulsive. Take the way he improvises a bank robbery on the spot, disarming the guard by sticking a Magic Marker in his back and pretending it is a gun. Now, Terry, he's cautious and methodical. It's his idea to kidnap a bank manager after work, spend the night with the family and open the safe in the morning.before business hours. (As for Harvey, well, he's not the brightest light on the string but, as Joe says, "he's honest and he falls real good.")

Everything goes smoothly (more or less) until unhappy housewife Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett) bumps into Terry while he is attempting to hijack her car. `I'm a desperate man,' he tells her, none too convincingly. `Desperate? You don't know the meaning of the word,' she sobs, zigzagging in and out of traffic like a demented Indy driver. `Desperate is waking up every morning and wishing you hadn't.' `On second thought, why don't you just pull over and let me out,' he pleads. No such luck. Terry represents an opportunity to escape the emptiness of her life and she is not going to let him get away. Since she refuses to stop the car, the pair winds up at the motel hideout. For Joe it's lust at first sight. For Terry, well, he recognizes trouble when he sees it (`Kate is an iceberg waiting for the Titanic.') Too late. Kate becomes romantically entangled with both men and is unable to choose (`Together, you make up the perfect man.')

Director Barry Levinson gives his actors plenty of room to move and they respond with some intriguing choices. Thornton is wonderfully twitchy while Willis handles his role with straight-faced panache. Picture Abbott and Costello playing Butch and Sundance. Blanchett's Kate is the perfect female match for these characters. After seeing her as a regal young monarch in `Elizabeth', a troubled welfare mom in `The Gift' and a deliriously funny refugee housewife in this film, I'm convinced there is nothing this chameleonic actress cannot do. As for Garity, he's a natural born talent. Harvey may be a little slow on the draw but it only adds to the character's naïve goofy charm. I like the way Garity savors his dialogue. He talks like Willie Nelson sings, the line readings a little `behind the beat' and flavored with a hint of country twang.

The script (by Harley Peyton) ripples with wry movie references. The video the two teens are watching in that first home Joe and Terry break into? It's 1963's The Great Escape (that's Steve McQueen on the motorbike.) During Kate's first night at the hideout, Joe gallantly stretches a curtain across the bed he is sharing with her. `Saw it in a movie,' he explains. The reference, of course, is to the famous scene in 1934's It Happened One Night. Peyton also slips in sly nods to boomer music faves like Bonnie Tyler and a certain Canuck rock icon. `You really think you're going to fool anyone in that get up,' asks Cloe (Stacy Travis), the wife of kidnapped bank manager Darrill Miller (Brian O'Byrne). `I mean, you look like Neil Young in . what was that album . 'After the Horses'?. ` `It was 'After the Gold Rush',' Terry says. ` And, besides, that's not the one. It's the one where he's leaning against a tree in the snow or whatever. That was actually what I was going for.' (That would be 1969's `Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.') Some of the show biz satire may be a little obscure. For example, Joe likes to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War. This would seem to be a dig at fallen uberagent Mike Ovitz who reputedly used the ancient Chinese text on strategy as a guide to daily living during his Hollywood heyday. Peyton sketches his characters with a droll wit reminiscent of Elmore Leonard, not surprising when you consider that the screenwriter adapted Leonard's `Gold Coast' for a 1997 TV movie. (I looked it up in the IMDB database.)

Although it begins to run out of steam in the last half-hour `Bandits' is still great fun for savvy film buffs with its appeal skewing towards an older boomer demographic.