Heist

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Mamet loves two things: scams and dialogue. This movie is rich with both.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The thinking person's caper flick, with its endlessly clever plotting revealing character under the utmost pressure.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Heist is a pleasure to watch, and the greatest pleasure is to watch Mr. Lindo and Mr. Hackman steal it.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Mamet doesn't just give us an enthralling heist flick, he makes the language something to savor. You're biting your nails with your ears peeled.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Mamet -- crafts tangy, well-seasoned dialogue that a good cast can feast on. And this cast is prime.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Mamet takes exactly those qualities that we most prize in genre movies -- characters, cleverness and high style -- and refines them to a high shine.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The kind of caper movie that was made before special effects replaced wit, construction and intelligence. This movie is made out of fresh ingredients, not cake mix. Despite the twists of its plot, it is about its characters.

Slate David Edelstein

With an actor as great as Gene Hackman in the lead, a lot of scenes even breathe.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

An exciting caper, though sometimes a trying one, with great dollops of self-parodying dialogue that will test your loyalty to Mr. Mamet's way with words.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's 99 and 44/100% pure Mamet all the way.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The ultimate challenge of making a first-rate caper movie is dishing up often-used ingredients with enough novel twists to make them seem familiar and fresh at the same time. Mamet soars over the hurdles with energy and imagination to spare.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A muscular, endlessly twisty homage to film noir capers like "The Asphalt Jungle."

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Not only reminds us that there's a little larceny in all of us, it reminds us how much fun it can be to commune with our inner thieves.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

If it's not up to the cups-and-balls elegance of previous Mamet movies like ''The Spanish Prisoner'' and ''House of Games,'' if it piles on more psychological fake-outs than is safe in a setup this size -- well, at least it's got that talk, that language, that thing Mamet does that is at this point as identifiable as the cadences of the Bard.

The New Yorker David Denby

Hackman works with a joyous authority that seems to come out of the experience of the character he's playing. He liberates David Mamet from David Mamet. [12 Nov 2001, p. 139]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

More entertaining than "The Spanish Prisoner" -- it also turns out to be more conventional and predictable.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Heist is a neat, bouncy, minor-key crime procedural that shakes no rafters. Glorious, freestanding Mametisms are dropped into it like beef hunks into clear soup.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Carries a whiff of disappointment: There's little here Mamet hasn't done before, and done better.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Hackman's in it a lot, and he is, as almost always, great fun.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

While not nearly as elaborate as either film, Heist plays like a combination of "The Sting" and "Mission: Impossible."

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

As a movie, Heist is merely an amiable time-killer. But it presents a terrific argument for federalizing airport security.

USA Today Mike Clark

Passable but never exciting, Heist is on a level with those minor Burt Lancaster action pics the actor's name helped bankroll in the '70s.

Film Threat Rich Cline

With yet another snappy script and a fiendishly clever story, Mamet leads us through this labyrinthine film with skill and wit. It's nothing terribly original, but it is a lot of fun.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Solidly entertaining and surprisingly free of the Mamet-isms that can suck the life right out of the most tightly crafted story.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

You've already seen this movie, right? Just a few months ago. It was called "The Score."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A typical shallow caper film. Just assume the truth is the exact opposite of what's happening.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Can he do the thing? Well, yes and no. He -- Mamet, David, celebrated celebrity playwright and less-certain maker of movies -- can do some of the things, like assemble a cast sleek as a cat.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Even a mediocre David Mamet movie is still a David Mamet movie. That means there are lines to savor, partly because the lines are so good, partly because they are so Mamet.

Variety David Rooney

While staccato dialogue and edgy confrontations have always been the wordsmith's forte, the precision-tooled mechanics of an elaborate crime caper have not, and the physical direction here could use some muscle.

Time Richard Schickel

The result is a well-tooled machine chugging coldly along a twisting road to nowhere.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Mamet is so in love with the con that he's conned himself.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

There's something offensive about how Mamet continues to win praise as a serious filmmaker with such a joyless picture, a picture that -- intentionally -- gives the audience so little.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

With a movie like this, there's no risk of spoiling the ending, because the entire plot is merely a formality trudging toward a foregone conclusion. The viewer's biggest challenge is to survive fits of yawning so violent they could disrupt ornithic migratory patterns.