**SPOILERS** Glossy and engaging crime caper having to do with the rip off of the Monte Carlo Casino by a gang of rag tag crooks, with a computer security expert thrown in,led by the recovered heroin addict and alcoholic Bob Mortagnet, Nick Nolte.
Living off the kindness, pimps hookers tourists and degenerate gamblers, of others for years in the run down section of Nice France Bob Mortagent is now at rock bottom. Depressed and feeling that he just hasn't got it, being a criminal mastermind, anymore Bob soon comes up with a plan to make up for all the lost time he spent in both drug and alcohol rehabs. Getting together with his close friend and fellow crook Raoul, Gerard Darmon, Bob cooks up this plan to knock off the famous Monte Carlo Casino the day that the Grand Prix is being run.
The plan calls for a slight of hands job with Bob's partners in crime Roul and Co. breaking into the Casino's safe that has 80 million francs worth of precious paintings. This while having the police and casino security think that they'll actually ripping of the same number of fakes in the main casino ballroom upstairs from where the real paintings are being kept! The key to all this is with Bob at he time in the casino gambling and being seen by hundreds of gamblers and tourists as well as the casino's battery of security cameras. This action on his part will provide Bob with an air tight alibi in not participating in the robbery.
Far too complicated to go into details, without giving away the very clever surprise ending, "the Good Thief" has Bob pull off a real double whammy to the surprise of everybody watching, as well as in, the movie. Bob not just lowers the boom on the casino and the cops headed by Bob's good friend, who want's to see him go straight, Capt. Roger, Theley Karyo,but on his clueless, in what his real plans are, fellow crooks as well.
Besides Nick Nolte and the aforementioned cast members there's also Nutsa Kukhiaidze as the part time hooker and full time nightclub dancer Anne. Anne gets herself involved with Bob and is used by him as a partner in his extraordinary gambling exploits in the casino later on in the film. The crew that both Bob & Roul assembled included sex-changed, from a male to a female, bodybuilder the former Philip and now Philipe, Julien Maurel. Philipe's fear of spiders, something he or she keeps secret from the rest of the crooks, later almost blows the entire caper wide open.
There's also the Judas, or rat-fink, that Bob covalently set up without his knowledge to throw the police off to what he was doing Algerian fugitive Said, Ouassini Embarek. Said desperately trying to find out what exactly Bob, who earlier in the movie saved his rotten neck, was up to in order to get in good with the cops who were in the process of deporting him back to his native Algeria. In his also trying to get in good with Anne, whom he supplies with dope, to find out Bob's plan Said didn't realize, until it was too late, that her boyfriend Paulo, Said Taghmauel, had a nasty and murderous jealous streak in him.
The really big ace up Bob's sleeve in what turned out to be the perfect crime turned out to be the identical twins Albert & Bertram, Mark & Micael Polish. In an amazing final sequence the twins not only had Bob, together with Anne, pull off the crime of the century but have in done with a double indemnity clause tacked on to it as well!
P.S The song "A Thousand Kisses Deep" on the movie's soundtrack had me at first think that it was sung by non-other then it's foghorn voiced star Nick Nolte. The song in fact turned out to have been preformed by singer Leonard Cohen, who's voice is a dead ringer for Nolte's, instead!
Living off the kindness, pimps hookers tourists and degenerate gamblers, of others for years in the run down section of Nice France Bob Mortagent is now at rock bottom. Depressed and feeling that he just hasn't got it, being a criminal mastermind, anymore Bob soon comes up with a plan to make up for all the lost time he spent in both drug and alcohol rehabs. Getting together with his close friend and fellow crook Raoul, Gerard Darmon, Bob cooks up this plan to knock off the famous Monte Carlo Casino the day that the Grand Prix is being run.
The plan calls for a slight of hands job with Bob's partners in crime Roul and Co. breaking into the Casino's safe that has 80 million francs worth of precious paintings. This while having the police and casino security think that they'll actually ripping of the same number of fakes in the main casino ballroom upstairs from where the real paintings are being kept! The key to all this is with Bob at he time in the casino gambling and being seen by hundreds of gamblers and tourists as well as the casino's battery of security cameras. This action on his part will provide Bob with an air tight alibi in not participating in the robbery.
Far too complicated to go into details, without giving away the very clever surprise ending, "the Good Thief" has Bob pull off a real double whammy to the surprise of everybody watching, as well as in, the movie. Bob not just lowers the boom on the casino and the cops headed by Bob's good friend, who want's to see him go straight, Capt. Roger, Theley Karyo,but on his clueless, in what his real plans are, fellow crooks as well.
Besides Nick Nolte and the aforementioned cast members there's also Nutsa Kukhiaidze as the part time hooker and full time nightclub dancer Anne. Anne gets herself involved with Bob and is used by him as a partner in his extraordinary gambling exploits in the casino later on in the film. The crew that both Bob & Roul assembled included sex-changed, from a male to a female, bodybuilder the former Philip and now Philipe, Julien Maurel. Philipe's fear of spiders, something he or she keeps secret from the rest of the crooks, later almost blows the entire caper wide open.
There's also the Judas, or rat-fink, that Bob covalently set up without his knowledge to throw the police off to what he was doing Algerian fugitive Said, Ouassini Embarek. Said desperately trying to find out what exactly Bob, who earlier in the movie saved his rotten neck, was up to in order to get in good with the cops who were in the process of deporting him back to his native Algeria. In his also trying to get in good with Anne, whom he supplies with dope, to find out Bob's plan Said didn't realize, until it was too late, that her boyfriend Paulo, Said Taghmauel, had a nasty and murderous jealous streak in him.
The really big ace up Bob's sleeve in what turned out to be the perfect crime turned out to be the identical twins Albert & Bertram, Mark & Micael Polish. In an amazing final sequence the twins not only had Bob, together with Anne, pull off the crime of the century but have in done with a double indemnity clause tacked on to it as well!
P.S The song "A Thousand Kisses Deep" on the movie's soundtrack had me at first think that it was sung by non-other then it's foghorn voiced star Nick Nolte. The song in fact turned out to have been preformed by singer Leonard Cohen, who's voice is a dead ringer for Nolte's, instead!