December 02, 2004 - Stax here with a special edition follow-up showcasing more of my favorite heist flicks! My first volume can be found here:

Kansas City Confidential, 1952, dir. Phil Karlson. This is a taut, raw Film Noir thriller about Timothy Foster, an embittered ex-cop (Preston Foster) who coerces three hoods (genre vets Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, and Neville Brand) into pulling an armored car heist. The catch? Foster, posing as "Mr. Big," wears a mask when dealing with the hoods (he also forces them to wear masks around each other). That way, Foster is the only who knows who they all are and nobody can rat him out.

Their heist goes off as planned except for an ex-con delivery truck driver named Joe Rolfe (John Payne) who, through a horrible twist of fate, is wrongly accused of being their getaway driver. Brutally beaten by the cops, Joe is eventually released for lack of evidence and he vows revenge on the hoods that have ruined his life. Full of neat twists and turns, and with an intriguing premise and entertaining characters, Kansas City Confidential is one of the coolest crime flicks you've probably never seen.

Sexy Beast, 2000, dir. Jonathan Glazer. British gangster Gary "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone) is coerced out of retirement in Spain by mad dog hoodlum Don Logan (Oscar-nominee Ben Kingsley) to partake in a heist masterminded by the even more menacing Teddy Bass (Ian McShane). Logan is a force of nature who ultimately bullies Gal into accepting one last job. Will this score prove to be Gal's undoing? In addition to Kingsley's searing performance, Sexy Beast also features a riveting underwater vault break-in sequence.

Reservoir Dogs, 1992, wr/dir. Quentin Tarantino. This hit crime flick was Tarantino's breakthrough film. A sardonically funny look at the planning and aftermath of a jewelry store heist, Reservoir Dogs assembles a band of crooks (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Eddie Bunker, and Tarantino) who are given color code-names by their bosses (Lawrence Tierney and Chris Penn) so they don't know anything about each other if they're busted. All hells breaks loose during the heist, which we never see, and the surviving crooks scramble to stay alive. The catch? One of them is an undercover cop.

The Great Train Robbery, 1979, wr/dir. Michael Crichton. Crichton (Jurassic Park) directed this feature film adaptation of his own best-selling novel about the first robbery of a moving train. In 1855 England, a dapper bandit named Edward Pierce (Sean Connery) masterminds a cunning scheme to heist a shipment of bullion from a moving locomotive. Connery's cohorts include Miriam, his "master of disguise" mistress (Lesley-Anne Down), and safecracker Agar (Donald Sutherland). Filmed in Ireland, The Great Train Robbery is a taut, handsomely produced piece of entertainment.

Heat, 1995, wr/dir. Michael Mann. Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), a veteran of the LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division, has tracked some of the most vicious and well organized groups of crooks around. Now he's after his elusive doppleganger, master thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). Hanna's obsessive quest to catch his prey has left his personal life in shambles, including a string of broken marriages and a suicidal step-daughter. Despite the toll his work has taken on him, the dapper and driven Vincent relentlessly pursues Neil whose own personal life is just as complicated and solitary.

Heat features several exciting heist sequences, including one now classic shootout in downtown L.A. It also captures the sprawl and loneliness of Los Angeles.

The War Wagon, 1967, dir. Burt Kennedy. Silly, escapist Western starring John Wayne as Taw Jackson who has left prison after being wrongfully imprisoned (and swindled) by a cattle baron-mine owner. Now he wants revenge. Taw teams up with Lomax (Kirk Douglas), the gunman the baron sent to kill him, and instead the pair assemble a gang to heist a gold shipment belonging to the robber baron. The catch? The gold shipment is protected by a specially designed stagecoach dubbed "the war wagon," an armored vehicle seemingly impervious to desperadoes. Of course, this challenge only requires Taw and Lomax to be even more cunning.

Tell me what your favorite heist flicks are! – STAX

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