Thieves (1996)

Expected more

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Sure, there were some good things about "Les Voleurs". And if it could have sustained its mood and its so-called plot up to the end of the film, I'd have given it more stars.It was interesting that almost all comments have been positive. I guess nobody noticed something rather obvious towards the conclusion, and if they had thought about it, they'd have understood why they were a bit baffled by the movie. The cast started baling out of the movie towards the end. Catherine Deneuve vanished. Her absence was explained by someone telling the hero that she had committed suicide. Off camera, no less, with no indication that that might happen. Then the young heroine, Deneuve's lover, disappeared. Where did she go? Oh yeah, someone mentioned that she'd gone to Marseilles. Oh really? I didn't notice her packing.So the director cleverly covered for them. Were his stars fed up? Was the shoot going overtime? Had the production run out of money? Anyway, finally he's left with the kid to come back to, the same one he opened the movie with. At least it gave him a couple of bookends, but what was between them was a plot with no satisfactory conclusion.Too bad. This could have been a fine movie, but it never got finished.Jelby, Victoria, B.C.

"Thieves" has Techine at the helm with Deneuve and Auetuil in the spotlight and critical plaudits aplenty. However, my reaction at the end of the two hour flick was "Yeah, so???". Telling of the intertwined lives of a cop and his brother and a girl and her lover and a handful of other people, this character driven flick wanders to and fro interminably, jumping around in time, examining the details of their fatalistic and pragmatic lives as they fuss and stew and brood over the this and that of their existence. Given subtitles and a soup thin story with no moral, no message, no hero, no villain, just character study heaped upon character study and no character that's even likeable, "Thieves" will not have much appeal for the masses. Recommended for French speakers or French film buffs only. (B)

I've watched this movie less as a coherent whole and more as an interrupted series of brilliant little moments. There is the scene where Catherine Deneuve is riding in the car explaining the philosophical nature of money. It didn't belong, but it was a very nice scene. There is the scene where Daniel Auteuil and Laurence Cote chat over his breakfast in a hotel and he sees her laugh for the first time. Nicely set up. Then there is the scene where Deneuve and Auteuil go to the Opera. The plot is muddled, but the actors provide fascinating little moments. Props to Techine for incredible direction with attention to character insight.

A love triangle. A crime story. A drama about fraternal conflict. All could make fine stories on their own, but in this film they're thrown together, and then given a philosophical spin (appropriate, since one of the characters is a philosophy professor). It's also more character-driven than you'd expect from this type of story; we are taken into the character's motivation, so we understand their actions, rather than have them driven by plot machinations. And it's done like a novel, flashing back and forth, so actions unfold gradually to reveal another layer. Unfortunately, as, it seems, with many films from France, the story doesn't so much end as stop. This may be appropriate with something like, say, UN COEUR EN HIVER, but it left me feeling a little cheated here. Still, this is worthwhile viewing.Of the actors, the only ones which are immediately familiar to me are Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve. Auteuil is playing someone who has trouble expressing himself, a character he seems to specialize him, based on what I've seen of his films (JEAN DE FLORETTE/MANON OF THE SPRING and UN COEUR EN HIVER), and he does another fine job here. I've never been a fan of Deneuve; I usually find her too inexpressive and icy. Here, however, she plays a character you usually don't find in crime films; an older woman having an affair with someone younger (here, a woman) who isn't fading or scheming. She makes Marie, who at first seems didactic, fully human.