The Good Thief (film)

For the television film, see A Good Thief.
The Good Thief
Original movie poster
Directed byNeil Jordan
Written byNeil Jordan
Based onBob le flambeur
by Jean-Pierre Melville
Auguste Le Breton
Produced bySeaton McLean
John Wells
Stephen Woolley
Neil Jordan
StarringNick Nolte
Emir Kusturica
Nutsa Kukhianidze
CinematographyChris Menges
Edited byTony Lawson
Music byElliot Goldenthal
Production
company
Distributed byMomentum Pictures (United Kingdom and Ireland)[1]
TFM Distribution (France)[2]
Release dates
  • 6 September 2002 (2002-09-06) (Toronto)
  • 28 February 2003 (2003-02-28) (Ireland)
  • 7 March 2003 (2003-03-07) (United Kingdom)
  • 4 April 2003 (2003-04-04) (United States)
  • 11 April 2003 (2003-04-11) (Canada)
Running time
108 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
France
Ireland
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30 million[3]
Box office$5,756,945[3]

The Good Thief is a 2002 crime thriller film written and directed by Neil Jordan. It is a remake of the French film Bob le flambeur (1955) by Jean-Pierre Melville. The film, shot in both Monaco and Nice, France, follows a heroin-addicted retired thief through the setup and completion of one last job.

Cast

Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews. Critic Roger Ebert notes of Nolte: "it is clear, that he was born to play Bob. It is one of those performances that flows unhindered from an actor's deepest instincts."[4]

Reviewer Pam Grady, writing for Reel.com, also praised the film: "The Good Thief has many virtues, beginning with the sheer wit of Jordan's screenplay and Chris Menges's neon-saturated cinematography that renders Nice both beautiful and sinister, trapping the characters in the glare of its lights. The heist itself is a complicated affair — Jordan took Melville's original idea and added a distinctly 21st-century twist — and all the more satisfying for it."[5]

The film holds a 77% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 146 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bolstered by Nolte's strong performance, The Good Thief brims with seductive style."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[7]

Soundtrack

Main article: The Good Thief (soundtrack)

The film's score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal.

References

  1. ^ "The Good Thief (2002)". BBFC. Archived from the original on 24 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  2. ^ "The Good Thief (2003)". UniFrance. Archived from the original on 24 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  3. ^ a b The Good Thief at Box Office Mojo
  4. ^ "The Good Thief". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. 11 April 2003. Archived from the original on 3 June 2013. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
  5. ^ "The Good Thief (2002)". Reel.com. 9 May 2005. Archived from the original on 9 May 2005. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  6. ^ "The Good Thief". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. 16 April 2003. Archived from the original on 23 May 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2021. Edit this at Wikidata
  7. ^ The Good Thief at Metacritic Edit this at Wikidata