"The Good Thief"

A stoned Nick Nolte lumbers through Monte Carlo in Neil Jordan's dazzling, free-spirited remake of a French crime classic.

By Charles Taylor

Apr 2, 2003 | Nick Nolte has become the movies' magnificent wreck, an image of battered masculinity that is far more beautiful than any preserved and mellowed good looks could ever be. There have been other stars who could be described that way, the older Humphrey Bogart for one. But where Bogart appeared graven, sepulchral, Nolte's face retains a fleeting trace of youth. There is a suggestion of unformed boyishness in his cheekbones, and expectancy in his narrow, hooded eyes. It's a face that, for all the hard knocks it looks to have undergone, seems unprotected, as if the crags and hollows were still tender to the touch instead of evidence of the emotional scar tissue he has formed. The tension in a Nolte performance has always been between his huge, lumbering body, the voice that sounds roasted to a husk, and the jackrabbit energy that expresses itself most often in some sudden, raspy exclamation.

Too knocked around to seem like undamaged goods, and too wily to seem down and out, Nolte shakes the potential sentimentality out of the traditional movie icon of emotionally bruised hero. If he's in touch with the sources of his pain he's also in touch with the things that bring him pleasure. It's even odds that will win out in any Nolte performance, and that balancing act is the perfect metaphor for the dazzling new movie in which he stars, Neil Jordan's "The Good Thief."

It was a gamble for Jordan to attempt a remake of a movie as esteemed as Jean-Pierre Melville's French classic "Bob le Flambeur," as much of a gamble as any that Nolte's character undertakes in the course of the movie. This long shot pays off -- in spades. Not only has Jordan made a movie that's looser, hipper, freer and -- abetted by his great cinematographer, Chris Menges -- more sheerly beautiful to look at, he's also made the best movie of his career.

Melville's suave elder statesman of the underworld here becomes Bob Montagnet (Nolte), the son of a French mother and American father, living in the South of France. A former thief who's taken to scouring the backrooms of seedy clubs for poker games, indulging his love of heroin when he's not at the tables ("Gambling and dope don't mix" is one of his maxims), Bob is on one long losing streak. He's down to his last 70,000 francs and when a bad day at the track takes care of that, he's game for the plan his associate Raoul (Gérard Darmon) has in mind.

Raoul's scheme is the Holy Grail of crooks: knocking over the casino at Monte Carlo. Except there's a twist. Instead of the money in the vault, Raoul proposes going for the priceless art masterpieces the casino's Japanese parent company has stashed in a secret underground vault. (The owners are so nervous about the paintings that they've decorated the casino itself with top-notch forgeries.)

One big haul and then we get out has been the setup for so many hard-boiled tragedies ("Rififi," "The Asphalt Jungle," "The Killing") that you think you see where "The Good Thief" is headed barely before it's begun. But nothing Jordan (who also wrote the script) does conforms to genre expectations, least of all his conception of his hero. Bob could so easily have been the beautiful loser, the man whose grace is revealed in loss. Except that on Nolte, whose specialty is a combination of gruff, bearish physicality and emotional vulnerability, grace never looks especially graceful -- or at least what we think of as graceful.

Bob is, to be sure, an enormously attractive, even romantic figure. Having a chat with Roger (the wonderful Tchéky Karyo), a cop who's much more his buddy than his nemesis, Bob looks momentarily at peace savoring his bleary-eyed heroin high. And when he takes in the young Russian hooker Anne (the stunning newcomer Nutsa Kukhianidze) to save her from the beatings she's receiving at the hands of her pimp, he's very much the crook with the heart of gold.

But, thankfully, the movie isn't about Bob's salvation. (Why do directors think salvation is such a good idea for movies anyway? Everything we like about raffish heroes is usually washed out of them when they're redeemed.) It's about how Nolte's particular brand of beauty shines as Bob gets to put his brains and talents to work, as he gets a chance to once more be the best crook he can be. Nolte has given great performances before -- in "Affliction," "Life Lessons," "The Prince of Tides," "Weeds" -- but with the possible exception of "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" he's never had the sheer fun he seems to be having here.

Bob may be on a losing streak but there's nothing of the fool about him and almost no desperation. "The Good Thief" isn't about a down-and-outer's last desperate stab at a big score. Bob is almost existentially resigned to the reversals of fortune that gambling and thieving (and taking dope) entail. The movie is about how he regains perfect harmony with a life of taking risks -- as the stakes get higher you can almost hear his insides thrumming like a tuning fork. As the risks mount, Bob becomes more confident, almost relaxed in his attention to every detail of the crime. Even his approach to kicking heroin is matter-of-fact (he handcuffs himself to the bed with a bucket and a tub of ice cream). You wouldn't think of Cary Grant or Fred Astaire watching Nolte's performance, though it has one big thing in common with that level of classy elegance: The sweat doesn't show. (Bob makes only one lapse in taste -- he insults French rock 'n' roll just after we've heard Johnny Hallyday's terrific version of "Black Is Black" -- called "Noir C'est Noir" -- which cuts the Los Bravos original.)

Jordan rewards Bob's cool, witty composure -- and us -- with a long sequence where Bob and Anne gussy themselves up (Nolte in a gorgeous Armani suit) and head for the casino. This part of the movie recalls the glamorous tension of the gambling scenes in Jacques Demy's "Bay of the Angels," and the lighter spirited scenes between Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis in "Girl on the Bridge." Watching Nolte and Kukhianidze at the roulette and blackjack tables, reacting with perfect élan to every spin of the wheel, every new card laid down, is like listening to a great jazz solo. You have no idea where the soloist is headed and yet his sheer confidence never makes you doubt he'll get there. It's a sustained sumptuous cliffhanger.

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