Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

GazerRise Fantastic!

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

gavin6942 Two convicts break out of prison in 1936 to join a third on a long spree of bank robbing. The youngest of the three (Keith Carradine) falls in love along the way with a girl (Shelley Duvall) met at their hideout, the older man is a happy professional criminal with a romance of his own, the third is a fast lover and hard drinker fond of his work.This is the second film that Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall worked on together, the first being "McCabe and Mrs. Miller". They would work together again on "Nashville" and Duvall would appear in more Altman films than any other actor.The film was based on the novel "Thieves Like Us" by Edward Anderson, which was also the source material for the "They Live by Night" (1949). Whether Altman was familiar with the older film or not is unclear, as he expressed a liking for the novel and had Joan Tewkesbury write a script based off it. There is no indication the older film had an influence at all.In order to make this film, the studio required Altman to make a film about country music, which would become "Nashville". As some consider the latter his best work, they have Altman's dedication to this film to thank. Others may enjoy this more, as it is a bit more like his previous film, "The Long Goodbye", which is the other contender for Altman's best film.

Scott LeBrun After "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", film director Robert Altman returns to the period piece with this superb character study, the second film adaptation (after Nicholas Ray's 1949 "They Live by Night") of a story by Edward Anderson. In Depression era Mississippi, a trio of criminals - Bowie (Keith Carradine), Chicamaw (John Schuck), and T-Dub (Bert Remsen) - escape from prison and hole up temporarily in a farmhouse where Bowie makes the acquaintance of Keechie (Shelley Duvall), with whom he falls in love. While there are bursts of violence throughout, this is much more character than action oriented, with leisurely pacing by Altman that allows the convincing atmosphere to really take hold. The period recreation is stunning, from costumes to sets to cars, and helps the viewer to become really involved in the story, and the people on screen, who each have their own flaws and ambitions. One will notice that Altman goes for an unconventional choice of soundtrack here, as instead of a score he uses old radio programs to enhance scenes; programs like "The Shadow" are used for more serious scenes while a production of "Romeo & Juliet" can be heard over a lovemaking scene. This, more than anything, transports the viewer back in time, doing a better job than most any music score could. Sometimes funny, and sometimes shocking, "Thieves Like Us" is best when it gives its well chosen cast opportunities to really strut their stuff. They couldn't be better; Carradine has one of his best ever roles as Bowie, who's engaging whether he's sharing a scene with Keechie or a stray dog he's befriended. Schuck is vivid as the explosive, alcoholic Chicamaw, and the late Remsen is a delight as the cheerful T-Dub. These two are under rated performers whose names deserve a mention a little more often. Louise Fletcher has her first substantial film role as the tough, no-nonsense Mattie, Ann Latham is appealing as Lula, and Tom Skerritt contributes a scene stealing turn as the cantankerous Dee Mobley. This is one of those movies best appreciated by those who don't need a car chase or other kind of action scene every few minutes in their criminals-on-the-lam pictures. It really cares about character, ambiance, and nuance, and is about as good as this kind of thing gets, maintaining interest for a compelling 123 minutes of screen time. While watching, the viewer will be amused to note the fairly big part that product placement plays here, as the drinking of Coca Cola becomes a recurring theme. Eight out of 10.

secondtake Thieves Like Us (1974)I really like most Robert Altman Films, but I never quite love any of them, even famous films like "MASH" or "Short Cuts." And "Thieves Like Us," which is a kind of loose remake of a favorite of mine, "They Live by Night" (1949, Nicholas Ray), is another really enjoyable, well made movie that lacks some kind of edge--creative, aesthetic, social, something--to set it off as remarkable and fresh. You might get the most out of this by just settling in and enjoying it, a plot that purposely lacks some of the high romance of, say, "Bonnie and Clyde" or some other outlaw-on-the-run movie. But if you do see the earlier Ray version, which is based on the same novel, you'll at least notice the way movie production has changed from the great Hollywood years of the 1930s and 40s to the New Hollywood inventions of the late 60s, early 70s. This movie lacks the sheer beauty of the first, the perfection, made possible by studio shooting. Here, it is all location work (in Mississippi), which adds authenticity and atmosphere, but which also keeps it from the kind of tight control of a typical 40s film. Another difference might simply be that this is a Altman movie and the other is by the inimitable Ray, who was able to fill his characters with humanity and heart, and so even lesser known actors (all of them) come alive fully. Altman's characters have all the quirks and nuances of real people, and though it doesn't feel a bit like a documentary, you do have a feeling that none of this rises above. It is meant to be grounded in a kind of realism that gives it authenticity over heightened drama. It's a choice I appreciate, even if it sometimes deadens the film.The plot is important for how it makes bank robbers as ordinary as you or me (hence the title). The augment to this is that we are supposed to identify with them--or by a stretch, we could picture ourselves doing the same thing. But that's just not true. The robbers seem very regular and normal, but they also seems selfish and stupid. They plow ahead regardless of better options. And it's too often about money--money they never actually use (they live in squalor) or know how to dream about using (they have few dreams, in fact). The leading couple here does have a romance, and it's truly touching, but also tragic. Altman can't help but pull a "Bonnie and Clyde" ending, of sorts (slow motion violence) but it feels hard and nasty. Maybe it's supposed to, a reaction to police authority appropriate for 1974.So what do we really have? A substantial, well made, restrained movie that plays a little too much by the book--the new book, the New Hollywood book, but a little timid cinematically.

tieman64 With "Thives Like Us", director Robert Altman takes such gangster films as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "They Live By Night", removes the nostalgia and mythos typical of the genre, and inserts a tone of disinterested irony.The film revolves around a gang of four (Chicamaw, T-Dub, Bowie and Keechie), but with its omnipresent Coca Cola bottles, billboards and radio advertisements, "Thieves Like Us" seems more interested in consumption. Altman's criminals are myth buyers, consumers who are not only products of the American Dream (co-opting their images from radio shows and newspapers) but wide-eyed dreamers who fuel it as well.Like "McCabe and Mrs Miller", Altman thus seeks to ridicule The American Dream. While most gangster films mythologise/glorify their criminals, turning them into heroes, celebrities or wild freedom fighters, Altman is less interested in pitting capitalists against criminals and the proletariat as he is in showing that they are all ultimately part of the same all inclusive system. As such, The Depression is never invoked as the cause of our gang's behaviour. No, unlike Nicholas Ray's 1949 take on the story, in which Bowie and Keechie emerge as brooding rebels, rallying against the world of social convention, Altman's thieves are tricksters and comedians, content to play games of bank robbery in parody of the institutionalised thievery they see around them. Consider the film's title, which itself is a line spoken by T-Dub: "them capitalist fellows are thieves just like us!" But the biggest character in "Thieves Like Us" is the Radio. The Radio functions as a myth tradesman, spewing fantasies of love, glamour and Home Appliances to a populace who struggle to afford its prices. Indeed, with the exception of Chicamaw, the ultimate goal of Altman's outlaws is to simply acquire enough wealth to live out their own banal interpretation of the American dream: a car, a house, a wife and an easy life. Consumption and acquisition are the goals. And so Altman uses the Radio throughout "Thieves" to create brutally funny, but ultimately pathetic, contrasts between the illusions to which the characters cling and the prosaic reality of their lives. Consider how T'Dub's sister listens to "The Shadow" whilst the thieves play cops-and-robbers in the living room or when the radio squeals "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" the moment Bowie walks into the kitchen and offers to help with the dishes. Similarly, during a love scene, a radio version of "Romeo and Juliet" plays in the background. The result is that, at every turn, Atlman short circuits or undermines the romanticism of the gangster. The gangster on screen is precisely not the myth, rather, like we the audience, just another exploited customer who buys into it.Even the film's bank robberies, usually employed as action or thriller set pieces in similar films, is here treated with disinterest. During the first few robberies we don't even enter the bank. Instead, Altman's camera remains outside with a waiting car, "Gangbusters" and "Seabiscuit" playing on the radio. During the third robbery, when we finally get to go inside a bank, Altman retains his detachment, yet also shows us the swift brutality of the crime (a man is matter-of-factly shot). Meanwhile, on the radio, President Roosevelt addresses the American people on the subjects of prosperity and security. Here Altman has flipped the previous bank robberies. The internal has become external and the audio has jumped from flowery romance to stark reality.Gangster films typically end in bloodshed, our heroes marching into history or myth, their bloody bullet perforated bodies gloriously collapsing in slow motion, but here Altman forces us to meditate on these rules. When his climactic shootout occurs, Altman immediately cuts to the gangster's wife (Keechie). She screams in slow motion whilst the bloodless violence occurs indoors, obscured by a rickety old house. In this sequence we see how Altman operates. All traditional iconography is rejected, whilst what's typically denied is given precedence. The norms are subverted while the spaces that exist between them are given room to breathe.Reversals like this take place constantly throughout Altman's filmography. Enjoyment of his films thus depends on the audience having an intimate awareness of what is being subverted, deconstructed and undermined, which is why Altman is so despised. Those who like his films like him for what he doesn't do, what he sets up and then rejects, rather than what he ultimately does."Thieves" ends with the pregnant Keechie waiting at a train station. As she sits, an evangelist - another charlatan - speaks on an overhead radio, delivering a passionate Resurrection speech to farmers and labourers about the need to bear burden and turmoil in silence; the poor need to learn to be poor for the "greater good". Keechie then strikes up a conversation with a woman sitting next to her. "My child," Keechie says, "will not be named after his father." There will thus be no resurrection. Keechie carries her burden in silence, refusing to let Bowie's death be mentioned and mythologized. But as she stands up and climbs the staircase, now an ordinary woman lost in a large and faceless crowd, we know what Keechie (Shelly Duvall) has become something else. She is another naive consumer, waiting to be seduced by the prophets of the airwaves. Significantly, this is exactly what happens within her next two collaborations with Altman. You might say that Duvall's character in "3 Women", a vacuous slave to social and corporate trends, is Keechie all grown up.8.5/10 - Altman had a remarkable string of masterpieces during the 70s, films like "MASH", "McCabe", "Thieves" and "3 Women" defining him as one of the most idiosyncratic and prolific directors of the decade. Worth two viewings.