Directed by critically acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios in his second feature, Museo is a very creative and exciting heist movie that works beautifully as a result of its unique storytelling and terrific acting performances. The Mexican film, with Spanish dialogue and English subtitles, tells the true story of the greatest art heist in Mexican history that took place on Christmas Eve in 1985 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City by a pair of amateur thieves. The plot follows two best friends who are leading rather unremarkable lives outside Mexico City in the middle-class suburb Satellite City: the mastermind and the black sheep of his family Juan, played by Golden Globe winner and celebrated Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, and the film’s narrator and mustached partner in crime Wilson, played by Leonardo Ortizgris. After working part-time at the Museum and witnessing the value of the prehistoric artifacts, Juan hatches a plan to break into the Museum late at night when the security guards are distracted and steal mostly Mayan archaeological pieces that they then hope to sell on the black market. The filmmaker makes a highly effective decision to present the actual heist scenes as a artful collection of montage sequences in which the duo are shown meticulously removing each artifact and the camera freezes on each stolen piece as the actors try to remain still. This dazzling filmmaking effect reflects the artworks that are being stolen from the architecturally contemporary museum so important to the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican heritage of Mexico. They are able to pull off the robbery rather easily as a result of it taking place at a time before the widespread use of security cameras and alarms, and they are even able to return to their families’ Christmas celebrations unnoticed. Things begin to unravel when the clearly unprepared young thieves quickly discover that they may not be able to sell any of the almost 150 artifacts because they are priceless and any art collector would not be stupid enough to purchase them as they would be easily detected. Towards the end of the movie, the story becomes more of a comic misadventure in which a pair of bumbling criminals desperately try to offload their illicit goods and eventually come to the conclusion that none of their crimes may have been worth anything. Overall, I found it to be a gripping film that artistically presents a truly fascinating story filled with excellent performances, especially from the always terrific Bernal, and, therefore, allows it to stand out among the countless number of heist movies.

Based on an incredibly true story, White Boy Rick is a well-done crime drama that vividly explores the underbelly of 1980s Detroit through the eyes of the street hustler and drug dealer Rick Wershe Jr. who became the youngest FBI informant in history, as well as his very troubled father. Played by the mesmerizing Oscar winner Matthew McConaughay in yet another gritty performance, the older Wershe tries to be a supporting father to his son and drug-addicted daughter but constantly struggles to make ends meet in the economically depressed city of Detroit and resorts to selling illegal guns. In order to get his father out of legal trouble and financially help his dysfunctional family that also includes his rather profane grandfather played by Oscar nominee Bruce Dern, the fifteen-year-old Rick Jr., played by the terrific new coming actor Richie Merritt, decides to work with the FBI, including two undercover agents played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Brian Tyree Henry. To help further the FBI’s sting operation targeting the crack epidemic, he is recruited to become a smalltime drug dealer selling to his criminal friends and others in exchange for partial immunity for him and his father. However, Rick Jr. becomes enamored by the flashy lifestyle and decides to become more of a self-made drug kingpin selling much more crack cocaine beyond what the FBI approves. Towards the climax and end of the movie, things get increasingly precarious for the now sixteen-year-old hustler and drug dealer, and he even gets shot in a turf war between rival gangs. Furthermore, the protection that the FBI promised him begins to fall apart and Rick Jr. is faced with long imprisonment for selling narcotics over a certain threshold. At that point, the film evolves into something very different from what the audience was expecting as a simple crime drama; the story delves into the problems of the criminal justice system in such a crime-ridden city as Detroit and the rather unfair mandatory minimums for drug offenses. Overall, although there were several flaws that made the film a missed opportunity, I found it to stand out as a result of the terrific performances and its fascinating depiction of a rather unbelievable and mostly unheard-of true story.

Written and directed by British filmmaker Bart Layton best known for the 2012 critically acclaimed documentary The Imposter, American Animals is a terrific heist movie that reenacts a truly extraordinary true story about a group of college students daring to commit one of the largest art thefts in American history. The filmmaker makes a truly unique and brilliant decision to mix the majority of the film’s dramatized narrative with interviews with the real life characters portrayed. We first meet Spencer Reinhard, played by the terrific Irish actor Barry Keoghan, as an art student at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky who is looking for a way to escape his ordinary life. He teams up with his lazy childhood friend Warren Lipka, played by another terrific young actor Evan Peters, to steal several rare books, including an original book of paintings by the famous wildlife artist John James Audubon, worth millions from the special collections library at Transylvania University. As they plan what they believed was a relatively simple heist, they run into a series of problems and must enlist two other friends: Chas Allen who is played by Blake Jenner and Eric Borsuk who is played by Jared Abrahamson. As the day of the robbery in December of 2004 approaches, several of the guys, especially Spencer, are worried that the robbery will fail and ruin their lives if they are caught, but Warren who acts as the ringleader successfully encourages them to go through with the plan. The movie keeps a quick and exciting pace as soon as the robbery commences by relying on shaky camera work and acting performances that make their characters’ intense emotions palpable. The filmmaker also does a remarkable job of crafting a film about reality; in the real life interviews, almost all of the individuals tell a slightly different story about what happened, which makes the audience question what really happened and what was fictionalized. Overall, I found it to be a terrific film that brilliantly transcends the formulaic aspects of a heist film while raising fascinating and important issues about storytelling, reality, and the desire for the individual to become extraordinary through reckless actions.