Thieves Like Us (1974)

Director: Robert Altman

Starring: Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, Louise Fletcher, Ann Latham

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Robbing 36 banks was easy. Watch what happens when they hit the 37th.

Plot: Two convicts break out of Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1936 to join a third on a long spree of bank robbing, their special talent and claim to fame. The youngest of the three falls in love along the way with a girl 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. The young lovers begin to move out of the sphere in which they have met, a last robbery in Yazoo City goes badly and puts paid to the gang once and for all as a profitable venture, but isn't the end of the story quite yet, as all three are wanted and notorious men with altogether different points of view on the situation they are faced with.

VIEW CLIP

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? I could but once was fine.

With Robert Altman, it's a good bet that you're at least going to get good performances and a good, reasonably paced flick. This is one of his I wasn't familiar with and it's a fine film. Everyone does a fine job (especially Shelley Duvall). There's more action that what you'd expect for Altman but it's just a few bank jobs. Everything else is just good ole Southern, Depression-era, bank robbin' drama. I don't recall any sunshine. Most, if not all of the picture, was cloudy or hazy which helped with that style of photography where nothing is all that crisp, as if gauze was placed in front of the lens. It's an interesting flick that shouldn't be overlooked in a sea of high profile Altman pictures.