Sunday

Thick as Thieves

2009

Hard times in Hollywood: an expensive action/caper film starring Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman goes straight to DVD. Worse. Not only did the studio send Thick as Thieves straight to DVD, but they sent it straight to Blockbuster as an exclusive!

Morgan Freeman, aged about 105, plays a grizzled old thief of rare precious objects who is forced by the Russian mob to team up with a younger man (80-year-old Antonio Banderas) to pull off an impossible score of some missing Faberge eggs. Apparently they also need to corner the market on geriatric medical supplies.

Complete spoilers ahead. Do not read until after you see the movie:

In fact, just about everything is a spoiler from now on. No way to avoid it. Even now, when I tell you that nothing is as it seems, that is a spoiler, but not a very important one, because most facts are buried deep inside multiple lies, like one of those Russian nesting dolls. When the first group of lies is exposed, the apparent truth will probably turn out to be just another elaborate lie, and the morass grows ever murkier because everybody is conning everyone else, and because the facts hidden from the characters are not precisely parallel to the facts hidden from the audience, so we have to try to figure out who knows what, and why that might be significant.

I have no objection to that. In fact, I like that kind of story when it is done right. David Mamet's Heist, for example, is a lot of fun to watch, and bears many superficial similarities to this film. In that film, an elderly thief of rare precious objects (Gene Hackman) is forced to team up with a younger man (Sam Rockwell) to pull off an impossible score of some precious Swiss gold.

The difference between Heist and this film is that the script for Heist was subjected to intense scrutiny and vetted by multiple logic checks, so that the movie makes sense if you re-watch it after learning everyone's secrets. Thick as Thieves did not follow that example. Examples:

(1) If Antonio Banderas is an undercover Miami cop working with the NYPD, as he is later revealed to be, why is he shown exchanging live ammunition with New York cops in the first scene?

(2) The entire plot hinges on one point: that Banderas will be fooled when Freeman's ex-partner (who is not really dead) impersonates a Russian mobster. This makes no sense at all. First of all, Banderas had been studying everything about Freeman in order to lure him into a trap. He was hoping to become Freeman's new partner, so it makes no sense that he would not have learned everything there was to know about Freeman's former partner. Second, it makes no sense that Freeman would assume Banderas' inability to "make" the impersonation, because Banderas should have known what the ex-partner looked like. NYPD knew the guy's identity and had pictures of him. Freeman could not risk the possibility that Banderas would recognize his not-so-ex-partner because if Freeman had been wrong on that one point the whole scam would have fallen apart, and he would have been in jail forever.

What makes this all even more irritating is that it is not essential to Freeman's scheme to have the ex-partner impersonate the Russian mobster. Anyone could have done it, and the scam would still be the same. The impersonator didn't even need to speak Russian, since he only needed to fool Antonio Banderas. (In fact, I don't think the actor playing the part of the ex-partner, Rade Serbedzija, speaks Russian.) It would have been far more secure for Freeman to use an unknown guy, and he already had them on the payroll! There are two other Russian guys fake-playing members of the same mob. One of them could have been playing the head mobster, and the other could have been the henchman. Because they were nobodies, Banderas could not possibly have "made" them.

But he should have made the ex-partner, and Freeman should have known that.

Of course if Banderas had, logically enough, been able to recognize the undead partner, there would have been no movie.

I could keep adding to that list, but what would be the point?

You can probably see already why the film went straight to video despite the presence of two top stars. Not only is the entire film a derivative cliché, but it's not even tight. One wonders how so much money could have been raised to produce this script, which would only make for an average episode of a typical network TV crime show, except that TV crime shows are unlikely to be able to afford such production values and the salaries of Freeman and Banderas.

Of course, I don't find TV crime shows unwatchable, and I rather like those two guys (although Banderas is best when he is given a good chance to use his gift for comedy, which is held in check here), so I made it through the film without grabbing the remote. Your mileage may vary.


Nudity:

Radha Mitchell and Banderas do two love scenes. In the first, Radha is theoretically naked, but almost everything is hidden by elbows and arms and camera angles. In the second, Radha walks past the camera in skimpy bikini underwear, and she looks great!

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking and Entering

2007

Juliette Binoche: 1280x544 film clips. Collages below.

 

 

 

Vera Farmiga: 1280x544 film clips. Collage below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Scary Movie

2000

Shannon Elizabeth returns, this time with cleavage only, but she's still one hot babe. Caps and 3 clips.


 

TV Land

Over in TV Land Alisyn Camerota puts on yet another leg show on "Fox & Friends".

 

 

 

 

 

 

         
   

Tennessee Buck

1988

Kathy Shower

Small sample below.

 

 
   
         

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and collages

back to ...

Bluebeard

 1972

Sybill Danning

Karin Schubert

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passchendaele

(2008)

A bust in the (female) nudity department. An obvious body double

 was used for Meredith Bailey


 
and Caroline Dhavernas kept her clothes on.

 




Deadly Little Secrets

(2001)

Despite many strippers and lesbians this movie has almost no nudity.

Andee Frizzell: nude lesbian sex scene in shower

Jody Thompson: bra and panties as stripper.



 


 

"Pure Evil"

(2007) (TV)

Unsold pilot about the anti-christ who quits the evil business and moves to suburbia only to be pestered by his pesky father Satan.

Geri Hall: cleavage as masseuse giving Satan a massage until he asks for a "happy ending"

 


 

"Jon Dore Show"

season 2, episode: "Jon Gets Horny"

Jon has sex with Kim Allan, a garbage can, and his friend's funery ashes.


 




"Urban Legends"

season 2, episode: "Upstairs, Downstairs"

The old story about guest who couldn't find the bathroom so she takes a whizz in the sink with disastrous results.

unknown: panties down to her ankles and almost some coochie



 


"F2: Forensic Factor"

episode: "Yosemite Park"

Candice Mausner: nude but dead

Heather Leslie: partial boob




"F2: Forensic Factor"

episode: "Vanished"

No nudity: you may remember Kaye Penaflor in her key role as "Virtual reality girl #1" in Jason X.

 
 


"L Word"

season 6, episode 2

Tanja Reichert in bikini as part of a lesbian entourage watching while diva Kate French takes a hissy fit.





 

 

 

Film Clips

Anne Hathaway was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this performance in Rachel Getting Married. Defying any expectations we might have had about three years ago, she has become one of the top young actresses. If you look closely, you may see her left nipple in the bathtub scene.

Another new flick: Chonte Harris in A Good Day to be Black and Sexy. Multi-segment film, sort of a "Love African American Style," which was screened at Sundance in 2008. It was released theatrically in one theater for one week in December, grossing $8,000.

Tottie Goldsmith in Fire

More from Sex Files: Alien Erotica. This time the clip features Sage Kirkpatrick. Samples below.