A good heist movie is hard to resist, and most of them fall into two basic camps. There are your gritty, intense thrillers that generally feature hardened criminals assembling to pull off a job. The overall tone is generally serious and things don’t usually end well for the protagonists.
Then you’ve got your breezier fare, with attractive ensemble casts and devil-may-care characters who come across as ultra cool thrillseekers. While the intricacies of the heist itself remains the focal point of the story, there’s a much greater emphasis on fun, along with a prerequisite twist ending…usually a ‘gotcha!’ moment where the antagonists get what they deserve.
The Thieves sort-of straddles the line between the two. Like a lot of modern Korean thrillers, there are frequent tonal shifts…from comedy to violent action, sometimes within the same scene. The film pulls it all together really well, and despite its length, remains consistently entertaining.
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| "Look what I made in pottery class today!" |
A tight-knit Korean crew of professional thieves, led by Popie (Lee Jung-jae), take a job at the behest of former colleague Macao Park (Kim Yoon-seok), who plans to steal a diamond owned by the wife of Hong Kong’s most notorious (and vicious) crimelord. Not only is the task itself taunting, there’s bad blood between Macao and Popie and the former’s safecracking ex-girlfriend, Pepsee (Kim Hye-soo). What caused this rift is revealed through flashbacks that are eventually vital to the narrative.
Additionally, Poppie’s crew is forced to work with a batch of Hong Kong thieves, which results in various conflicts, some of which are pretty amusing. Typically, much of the first act involves planning the elaborate heist, as well as taking the time to establish the eclectic assortment of main characters. However, not everybody is who they seem when we first meet them. The most intriguing narrative aspect of The Thieves is that we grow increasingly uncertain who we should be rooting for, at least until some bombshells are dropped during the final act.
The heist itself is flashy, exciting and suspenseful, as are most of the other action sequences. Sure, we have to suspend our disbelief at times, but it ain’t like director Choi Dong-hoon is trying to remake Rififi. With an interesting plot, fast pace and enjoyable characters, The Thieves is well worth catching for heist thriller fans.
This is a re-issue of a Blu-ray originally released in 2013.
EXTRA KIBBLES
FEATURETTES - Making of; Meet the Thieves. Both of these are the usual promotional pieces included with most Asian films Well Go USA releases.
TRAILER
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