SnoopyStyle Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Lee Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) are a bank robbing team. They break out of prison and come up with a different scheme. This time around they kidnap the bank managers and rob the bank before it opens. They become known as The Sleepover Bandits. Everything is going well until bored housewife Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett) runs over Terry.This should be much better than it actually is. It has veteran director Barry Levinson, and great actors. But something is missing. There is a lack of energy. There is action but they're shot weakly. There are jokes but they lack the punch. Maybe they needed a real comedian in one of three lead roles. The three leads are great actors who sometimes do a few jokes in their roles. They aren't actually comedians.

Uriah43 Although Bruce Willis (as "Joseph 'Joe' Blake") has the top billing in this movie, it is actually Billy Bob Thornton ("Terry Lee Collins") who carries this film with an outstanding and hilarious performance as a hypochondriac who seems to have contracted just about every disease known to mankind. Essentially, Joe decides to break out of prison at the spur of the moment and Terry mindlessly follows him out of the gates. Once outside they decide to rob banks which leads them to fame as "the Sleepover Bandits" due to their penchant of kidnapping bank presidents at night and sleeping at his house prior to robbing the bank the next morning. In one specific botched get-away Terry accidentally kidnaps a passing motorist named "Kate Wheeler" (Cate Blanchett) which further increases their fame. Rather than divulge the entire plot I'll just say that this film had some good moments and some bad moments. The beginning and the end were very good but it seemed to really slow down in the middle. Big time. And while both Bruce Willis and Troy Garity (as the get-away driver "Harvey 'Dog' Pollard") added decent performances, Cate Blanchett didn't seem to have the right chemistry for this movie. Be that as it may, the end result was a good comedy aided primarily by the excellent acting of Billy Bob Thornton. If the bar room scene doesn't make you laugh then nothing will.

classicsoncall You would expect the team up of Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thonton and Cate Blanchett to be pretty good, and "Bandits" has it's moments, but you sure have to disengage from some of the less plausible elements of the story to make it work. Like the character of Joe Blake's (Willis) cousin Harvey (Troy Garrity). Didn't he quit the bank robbery business at some point along the way as he tried to pick up his dream girl hitchhiker? But there he was in the thick of things at the finale. So did he quit just to fool the audience, with Joe and Terry (Thornton) in on the ruse? I didn't get that, and I'm not going back to try and figure it out.But I generally liked the chemistry between Willis and Billy Bob. I don't know if throwing Blanchett into the mix was all that valuable or necessary. The other two palookas could have managed their bank heist without her being around. The love triangle really didn't work for me, once again referring to those less plausible elements I referenced earlier.The twist ending following the opening set up was pretty clever though. Not really buying it, but it did manage to extend a bit of misdirection offered by 'Criminals At Large'. If I can get my hands on a better quality print of the flick than the one I watched, I just might be up for a second viewing. In the meantime, I'll come away reasonably satisfied with the first pass, but without a glowing recommendation.

btm1 "Bandits" is one of those comedies where everything is so perfect that it is just a joy to watch. That feeling of enjoyment is from a clever plot, and acting and directing that never lets the story become a farce.The writing, directing (Baltimore's Barry Levenson) and acting are all superb. I particularly appreciated Cate Blanchet's performance as Kate Wheeler, an unappreciated gorgeous wife in despair because she has prepared a fabulous gourmet dinner and then her dolt of a husband decides to skip dinner. (I recently saw a serious drama, "The Man Who Cried," in which Cate Blanchett was also terrific. She hadn't come to my attention previously.) Billy Bob Thornton also was great as a neurotic convict/bank robber, and Bruce Willis uses a tough guy persona that has worked exceedingly well in such previous films as "Pulp Fiction." The plot, derived from a true criminal case, is about a pair of convict buddies who break out of prison and begin robbing banks to finance their dream of a plush retirement in Mexico. But they don't like the dangers that ordinary bank robbers risk, so they come up with a novel approach of getting the bank managers to let them into rob the banks in the morning before the bank is open to customers. But when Cate Blanchett's character enters their life, a romantic conflict ensues. Troy Garity is very good as an easily distracted movie stunt man (I don't recall if he was a friend or relative) in need of some excitement who jumps at the opportunity to drive the bank robbers' get-away-car.The story is told as a narrative reflecting back on the events that led up to the narration's current time. The end has a surprise twist that I was able to guess because of something included earlier in the film.If you are old enough or fortunate enough to have seen Alex Guiness' 1950's era classic crime comedies, "The Ladykillers" and "The Lavender Hill Mob," I think you will find that "Bandits" brings them to mind, despite "Bandits" being a less broad form of comedy.