'HONEST THIEF' which I saw earlier this week, is an M Rated American action thriller Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written by Mark Williams in only his second film making outing following 2016's
'A Family Man', although he has twenty-nine Producer credits to his name and three as Writer. Released Stateside last week, the film has so far grossed US$13M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far.
Calling him the 'In-and-Out Bandit' because meticulous career bank thief Tom Carter (Liam Neeson) has stolen US$9M from twelve small-town banks across seven States while successfully managing to keep his identity a secret, and therefore keeping the Police authorities at bay for the past nine years following his life long career in bomb disposal with the Marines where he learned and honed his very particular set of skills.
One day Carter walks into a rental self storage unit business looking to rent a unit, when he is greeted by Annie Sumpter (Kate Walsh) on the other side of the counter. She is a psychology graduate student divorced a couple of years ago, and there is instant chemistry between the pair. We then fast forward one year and Carter is showing Annie around a empty house that he has his eye on to buy, at the same time asking her if she will move in with him. It has now been a year and he says that he can think of no one with whom he would rather spend the rest of his life with. She agrees. Carter also says that there is something else he needs to tell her, but Annie has had enough surprises for one day, and it will have to wait she replies. He in turn replies it can wait.
Carter is ready to come clean about the string of his robberies and the US$9M he has stashed away, never having spent a single dime of the money he has stolen. He picks up the phone from a hotel room where he is staying and dials the FBI and is ultimately put through to Agent Sam Baker (Robert Patrick). Initially, Baker is disbelieving of Carter's story saying that they often receive crank calls from people claiming to be the 'In-and-Out Bandit', so why should they have any faith in his story. Carter says that he wants to strike a deal for coming clean and handing himself over to the authorities with the US$9M stolen returned in full. He wants a reduced sentence down to two years, within a facility less than two hours drive from Boston, and full visiting rights. When Baker asks why - Carter simply says for love - he has met a woman with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life peacefully without his criminal past hanging over his head.
And so Baker, still skeptical, sends a couple of his Agents to conduct an initial interview with Carter to determine is he is for real. There is Agent John Nivens (Jai Courtney) and Agent Ramon Hall (Anthony Ramos), who come knocking on the hotel room door later the next day. Asking if Carter can prove his story he recounts how he single handedly conducted his robberies, the banks he chose, the methods he used, and that his stolen cash is to be found in a secure self storage unit facility. Carter willingly hands over the key, gives the Agents the address and patiently awaits their return once they have located the stash of cash. At the storage unit facility, the Agents sure enough find the cash, but rather than take it in as evidence they elect to hold onto it for themselves to fund their retirements.
They return to the hotel to meet with Carter and say they located the cash, with the intention that they will shoot him dead making it looks as though the Agents acted in self defence. Carter says that those boxes contained US$3M and there is still another US$6M stashed elsewhere (just as an added security measure). But, their plan is foiled when Agent Baker comes knocking on the door looking to question Carter for himself. When suspicions are raised, Nivens shoots Baker dead. In the ensuing scuffle, Carter and Nivens crash out the window two storeys up, landing on top of each other on the ground with Annie who has just arrived on the scene to surprise Carter with her visit.
Carter and Annie drive off at speed with Nivens and Ramos giving chase. Meanwhile, Agent Tom Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan) arrives on the scene to survey the corpse of his partner Baker. Meyers now gets involved in the hunt for Carter, vowing to bring Baker's murderer to justice. What follows is a cat and mouse chase across the streets of Boston involving shoots outs, fist fights, car chases and car smashes as Carter seeks to clear his name and gain some sort of confession out of Nivens and Hall. Nivens is intent on killing off Annie who is a material witness to the pair of Agents loading boxes (of cash) from the storage facility into the back of their car, which she also has on a memory stick from the on site camera recordings. Nivens confronts Annie at the storage facility and a fight breaks out with Nivens getting stabbed in the leg with a pair of scissors and Annie getting knocked out cold, and almost a bullet to the head were it not for Hall intervening at the crucial moment.
Carter arrives after the fact and rushes an unconscious Annie to the hospital for emergency treatment. Later Carter ambushes Hall at his home. Hall confesses that he is the reluctant partner in all of this, and gives up the memory stick which he secured from Annie while he frisked her when she was unconscious - a fact unknown to Nivens. Hall also states that Nivens is going to kill Annie at the hospital and that Carter should get her out of there immediately. Hall also gives over the details of the safe house where the money is stashed. When Nivens rocks up to the hospital with Hall, he orders Hall to commit the kill, but he refuses. So Nivens goes in and sees that Meyers is sat by her bedside, waiting for her to come round for questioning. Upon seeing Meyers he leaves.
Annie by now has recovered in the comfort of a hotel room and refuses to leave saying that she wants to be in on the act to see Carter clear his name. She is present in the car when Carter blows up Nivens home yet deliberately sparing him his life. He then follows Nivens to the safe house knowing full well that he intends to make a run with the money. Carter enters with Hall, holding them both a gun point. Hall comes clean to Nivens about the memory stick, at which Nivens turns on Hall with Nivens ultimately plugging Hall with bullets killing him outright. A gunfight erupts between Carter and Nivens, with Carter sustaining a non life threatening bullet wound to his right side. Nivens escapes in his car with his stash of US$3M.
Carter calls Nivens on his mobile phone while also tracking his journey. He warns Nivens that there is a hastily assembled improvised explosive device located directly under this car seat, and because it was so hastily assembled it is likely to be unstable. If he leaves his seat it will explode, even if he sneezes it could explode - any sudden movement, and potentially boom, they'll be scraping off bits of Agent Nivens from the road for weeks. The bomb squad arrive, the street is cordoned off, and the device is disarmed although with no detonator installed it would have been impossible for the bomb to explode. Nivens is escorted from the car and immediately placed under arrest by Meyers and two other Agents standing by.
Following this, later that night back at FBI HQ, Meyers receives a voice recorder (dropped into his office by Annie) which recorded the conversation between Nivens and Hall before the gunfight at the safe house, proving Carter's innocence in the death of Agent Baker. Carter turns himself in, with Annie looking on, as Meyers promises to try to get a lighter sentence for him.
This film hardly ranks as one of Neeson's best, but it is a serviceable, passable yet almost instantly forgettable offering that sees the sixty-eight year old action star doing what he does best with his particular set of skills. The plot is a little lame verging on the romantic action crime genre that is saved by the convincing performances from Neeson, Walsh, Courtney and Donovan, but other than this the dialogue is questionable, the action set pieces you have seen done a hundred times before and the story moves along at such a pace that there is hardly any time to build up the suspense factor. A low on thrills, no frills by the numbers film that has a few saving graces that would elevate this to a middle of the road offering that has been the trademark of Neeson's career of the last fifteen years or so.
'Honest Thief' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five claps.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
