Kelly Reichardt's heist film presents an ironic twist on the genre, focusing on a weak and clueless protagonist, James, portrayed by Josh O'Connor. Set in 1970s Massachusetts, James, an art school dropout, concocts a heist to steal paintings, leveraging his family's social standing and borrowing money under false pretenses. However, the film eschews action-packed dramatization, instead depicting the mundane and disastrous consequences of his plans. Through its realist filmmaking, Reichardt captures the 'unglamour' of crime, presenting a starkly unadorned reality devoid of the typical heist movie excitement.
By the end, he's a weirdly Updikean figure, though without the self-awareness: going on the run with no money and without a change of clothes.
The very fact of its ostentatiously unadorned reality makes the extraordinary events real and startling, shot...with an earth-tones colour palette in a cold, clear daylight in her unflavoured, unaccented style.
James plans to pay two tough guys and a getaway driver to steal four paintings...But then, as one of his robbers plaintively ask him, how are they to be fenced?
Reichardt has unerringly located the unglamour in the heist...robbery with guns pointed at innocent people and security guards roughed up, with no dramatic music on the soundtrack.
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