Bandits Review: Bank Robbery Meets Love Triangle

Ever since Fargo, you will most likely start seeing an increase in the number of movies that Billy Bob Thornton stars in on my blog. I just can't believe how I could have missed such an incredible actor who has been in the industry for this long but better late than never I guess.

The first movie I decided to watch of him was a crime/comedy movie called Bandits in which Bruce Willis and Cate Blanchett also joins Billy Bob Thornton. The cast is certainly magnificent and the plot looks promising so what can go wrong right? Well nothing went wrong as I can safely say that despite being made way back in 2001, Bandits was one of the most entertaining movies I have watched in the year of 2014. I guess this also speaks for the quality, or lack of it, of these so-called comedies that we are stuck with today.

Bandits was a movie that brought me pure joy and many laugh-out-loud moments during its 2 hour run time and I didn't want the movie to end. What's surprising is that this compliment is coming from someone who is not exactly a fan of Bruce Willis as I usually don't like his movies at all. But Bandits was a rather different story.

Bandits follows the story of two inmates Joseph "Joe" Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Lee Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) who escape from prison and start robbing banks in order to turn their dreams into a reality. In this case their paradise happens to be building a nightclub/restaurant where Joe will handle the nightclub affairs while Terry will be in charge of the restaurant. In order to help them with their operation they recruit Joe's cousin Harvey Pollard (Troy Garity), whose passion is being a stuntman, to be their getaway driver during their robberies.

But our duo don't just come rushing into these banks with their guns drawn. Prior to robbery they spend the night at the homes of the managers of the banks that they intend to rob the next day. That's why the tabloids give them the nicknames "Sleepover Bandits". After spending the night, the duo bring the manager along with his family to the bank very early in the morning and keep them hostage while they get the manager to open the bank vault. The dialogues that take place during these robberies are hilarious. I also particularly enjoyed their disguises.

Do they really think they are fooling anyone with these hilarious disguises? :D

However, things take a different turn for our characters when Terry decides to take a "hostage". On the way to another robbery Terry tries to hijack a car to reach the next meeting place. But instead he gets hit by a car he tries to hijack which is driven by Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett) who is a very unhappy housewife. Unsatisfied with her life Kate decides to stick with Terry despite his attempts to make her leave. While everyone thinks she is missing and probably held hostage, Kate actually becomes a part of this gang. After Kate joins the group our duo Terry and Joe both fall in love with her. But things are more challenging for Kate because she is in between these two men and struggles to choose as she falls in love with both of them. 

Because while Joe has charisma and strength, Terry has reason and brains while also being "cute as a beaver" (his words). Just like Kate says in the movie it is impossible to choose between these two because when you put them together you get the perfect man.

This is the part where I admit that the idea of two men fighting for you is actually quite cute. Not like gun fights or stabbings though like they do in Turkey, but merely to impress you with dancing, drinks, food or something of that nature like our characters do in Bandits.

Terry is definitely the funniest and most entertaining character in the movie. I am not saying that solely because I'm a Billy Bob fan because despite not being a fan of Bruce Willis I also enjoyed his character much more than I expected to. However, Terry is somewhat of a hypochondriac and Joe knows it just too well to exploit this and use it against him in order to win over Kate. Joe keeps making up lies about having a brother who had a brain tumour and Terry actually starts believing that he also has a brain tumour as well. In a scene Joe asks Terry whether he feels his right side before Terry dances with Kate and this is when he actually starts to lose feeling on his right side and starts crawling with his left side when he falls down in the middle of the dance (it could be his left side I don't remember 100%) which is probably one of my most favourite scenes in the movie.

The acting was definitely top notch in Bandits. Billy Bob Thornton was incredibly mesmerising as Terry while Cate Blanchett was superb as Kate. Cate is just excellent at portraying demented and deeply troubled women, she also proves my point by winning an Oscar for her brilliant performance in Blue Jasmine :D Bruce Willis was pretty strong as the cunning and womanising type who even manages to get smiles from the women he hijacks. Seriously though, if your hijacker complements on your beauty while kindly asks for your car keys, would you really smile at him? It's just daft but it also shows the effect Bruce's character has on women and of course that was the whole idea in Bandits. A certain female bank manager even helps him escape from the police :D 

The ratings for Bandits are fairly low on some websites but I really don't care. I for one thoroughly enjoyed this movie and I think it was very entertaining so I recommend all of you to give it a go. I have seen many crime and bank robbery sort of movies and while Bandits had plot holes (escaping from a maximum security prison a little too easy by stealing a cement truck???), it was the most enjoyable bank robbery/crime movie I have ever seen that was also complemented with comedy and a hilarious love story on top. I truly hate love stories but Bandits did a great job of it while avoiding being cheesy.