Brain Robbery

fter Butch, after Bonnie, there came Bandits.

Billy Bob, Bruce and Blanchette breeze briskly through this bumbling Barry Levinson picture.

I'll stop now, as the alliteration grows tedious, but not as tedious as Bandits grew by the time it reached its ridiculous conclusion. That is not to say that Bandits was not a lot of fun along the way.

Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton play Joe and Terry, a pair of bank robbers who become friends after a wild prison break that involves a cement truck and plastic lawn animals. Terry, the twitchy hypochondriac brain of the duo, develops a plan to rob banks--not by stickups or shooting, but by sleeping over. The night before the heist, Joe and Terry travel (in some outrageous disguises from Neil Young to Andy Warhol) to the home of the bank manager and inform him that they will be spending the night and robbing the bank in the morning. The uniqueness of their plan vaults them into the national spotlight.

American audiences have long had a love affair with bandits--from Butch Cassidy and Clyde Barrow to the numerous successful incarnations of Robin Hood. Ever since the FDIC started insuring our deposits up to $100,000, it has been hard to hate bank robbers--they're stealing from the government, which most of us spend every April 15th trying to swindle. We instantly like Joe and Terry--they are a pair of polite thieves, with their own insecurities and anxieties. They are the mom-and-pop store of bank-robbery.

Things go well for the boys until Kate (a very enticing Cate Blanchette) bursts on the scene. A depressed, lonely housewife, Kate is as crazy as the two thieves: She sleeps with Joe, and later sleeps with Terry, creating a menage-a-trois by proxy. For the most part, the love triangle fuels the film, but by the end, it weighs it down, dampening the fun that the heist scenes provide.

Thornton's Terry steals the show. Like Woody Allen, Thornton is a mess of neuroses and ticks--someone who listens to the Merck Manuel in the car to determine what is ailing him, thinks that his body is becoming paralyzed and takes more pills than former Dukie and Pfizer chieftain Edmund Pratt could possibly dream of. As the film's screenplay ails and sputters, Thornton's ad-libs and frantic twitching come to the rescue. Willis also holds his own--this is the first time Willis has actually played a character other than Bruce Willis. Blanchette is also remarkable as always.

The real problems come from the script and Levinson's que-sera-sera directing style. Bandits is vacant of any kind of over-arching theme, as if Levinson cast the film, passed out scripts and said, "Make me a movie." Levinson did have great mind to toss in some Bob Dylan and Bonnie Tyler songs--the film's soundtrack is well balanced. Bandits could have been a great heist film, if something besides the music had received some direction.