'Bandits' suffers from dragging
plot
 By
Jeff Cantwell
Staff Writer
They come into your house; they eat with your family.
They are polite, friendly and even gracious for your hospitality. But
in the morning they are going to rob your bank.
"Bandits," from director Barry Levinson ("Wag the
Dog"), is the story of the sleep-over bandits, told from the point of
view of a crime reporter who had interviewed the bandits just before
their final bloody bank robbery.
We are first introduced to the characters in the
midst of their final bank robbery that went horribly wrong. They are
surrounded by the police and all they can argue about is "that girl,"
and then we are taken into a flashback to meet "that girl" actually
named Kate (Cate Blanchett).
What makes this movie is the charisma between Joe
(Bruce Willis) and Terry (Billy Bob Thornton).
Joe is a kind man at heart but his bank-robbing
prowess is shown through strength and fear. He also displays his anger
management problems when pummeling a sparring partner who took a cheap
shot at him.
Terry is an obsessive compulsive paranoid hypochondriac.
He babbles on and on about the diseases he has, and listens to medical
tapes that explain different diseases that he could have.
The two are constantly bickering throughout their
kidnappings and bank robberies. The clever dialogue mixes well with
a pair of actors that obviously get along as well off the screen as
they do on.
Willis has a tendency to work with people he developed
friendships with on other movies. After "Armageddon," he brought co-star
Michael Clarke Duncan to "The Whole Nine Yards." There he befriended
Matthew Perry and made an Emmy winning guest spot on "Friends." Perry
returned the favor with a cameo appearance in Willis' "The Kid."
All of these connections pan out for Willis in
terms of excellent chemistry with his co-stars. Now back to his "Armageddon"
connections - Willis and Thornton bring their incredible screen chemistry
to "Bandits."
But it is truly Thornton who steals this film.
His nervous shakes, and quiet, intelligent manner, complemented by his
wild theories and quick comments, make him the most entertaining aspect
of the film.
The way in which his obsessive-compulsive nature
reacts with a jukebox in the film is by far the funniest scene.
With all this good work coming from the film's
two leads, you might wonder why it isn't much better than a two star
movie.
"Bandits" is excruciatingly slow. The first 25
minutes are fine and the last half-hour works well. But the hour and
a half that takes up the core of the film drags like a dog with broken
back legs.
The romance between Joe, Terry and Kate - yes,
she manages to sleep with both men - takes precedence throughout the
middle of the film. Unfortunately this love triangle quickly gets annoying.
Blanchett's character is too odd and quirky with her obsession for cooking
and love for cheesy '80s love songs, and breaks up the flow of both
Willis and Thornton.
"Bandits" is a good-natured buddy flick hindered
by the presence of a third party. While it has strong traces of both
drama and comedy, the final film ends up indecisive.
"Bandits" is not dramatic enough to be pure drama
and not funny enough to be pure comedy; it just does not have the correct
recipe to mix the two together.
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