Thieves Like Us: Good, not great Altman

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Some period pieces seem to be all about the art direction and costume design, every scene dripping with flourishes that seem to call attention to themselves - a plumed hat, say, or streams of 1947 Hudson Coupes driving by in an establishing shot. In Thieves Like Us, Robert Altman seems to be going for a different kind of verisimilitude, with dirt being more prevalent than heavily manicured and it feels like Altman could have a mere two cars on hand and he'd make it work. More than anything, the single most impressive thing about the movie is how much it feels like the Depression.

The second screen adaptation of the eponymous 1937 Edward Anderson novel (Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night from 1948 is the other, with Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy clearly inspired by it as well), Thieves Like Us is about a doomed couple on the run from the law taking a desperate stab at love. The movie starts with Bowie (Keith Carradine) and Chickamaw (John Schuck, 'Painless Pole' in Altman's M*A*S*H) breaking out of the state penitentiary to join their ringleader T-Dub (Bert Remsen) on an extended crime spree. In between bank jobs, Bowie meets, and sweetly falls for, Keechie - played by 70's Altman muse Shelley Duvall.

The movie returns again and again to this relationship and it's an affecting one. The chemistry between the two atypical-looking leads is palpable, even if, for many viewers, not particularly erotic - fairly typical for the director, for whom presenting nudity certainly did not equal presenting something sexy. Keechie and Bowie grow on the viewer, even as we can feel that they aren't going to end up with the white picket fence at the end.

A further undercurrent of the film is a seemingly endless stream of radio advertisements, overtly subconsciously alerting the protagonists of all of the things that they don't or can't have. The only consumable that our anti-heroes partake in is a steady stream of Coca-Cola.

As a side note, from the beginning of the film, Coen Brothers fans can spot the bits that the sibling auteurs cribbed for O Brother Where Art Thou?, in particular the aforementioned opening scene in this matches with Brother's trio's car ride with famed Babyface Nelson. It's pretty clear that the Coens wanted to give many nods to this flick (among many others in a nod-filled movie).

All that said, though Thieves is beloved among some Altman buffs, I found it to be a bit dull - and this is from a guy whose fave Altman is 3 Women, hardly a tightly-plotted gem (but it is great, I swear). I guess I'd have to say it's more B-grade Altman, like California Split or Popeye, not quite up to the level of Nashville, The Long Goodbye or McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and certainly not to the depths of H.E.A.L.T.H. or Quintet.

The DVD also features a typically terrific commentary by the director.