Bandits Review

In "Bandits" Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton play a pair of mismatched escaped convicts. Together Willis' impulsive and dashing action man and Thornton’s hypochondriac intellectual launch a new career as bank robbers – The Sleepover Bandits – that turns them into folk heroes and TV stars. They hit upon the simple but effective method of turning up on a bank manager’s doorstep of an evening, politely taking the family hostage overnight, and travelling into work with the bank manager the following day. All seems to be going well until Thornton is almost run down by bored and frustrated housewife Cate Blanchett, and brings her along to their hideout. When she decides life with the pair of outlaws is just what her otherwise empty life needs things start to get complicated…

The film features three great central performances from Willis (in the most amazing pony tailed wig), Thornton and the emancipated Blanchett. Director Barry Levinson’s adept touch ensures that the film has a number of enjoyable and memorable scenes, from the spontaneous jail break and first bank robbery at the start of the film, to Bruce Willis' delighting Cate Blanchett with his word perfect knowledge of the lyrics to Bonnie Tyler’s bombastic eighties smash "Total Eclipse of the Heart!" However with it’s decidedly gentle pace and two hours running time "Bandits" definitely feels too long, partly because the film begins with our anti-heroes surrounded by the police in an L.A. bank, and we spend the next hour fifty waiting for the action to catch up, and partly because it lacks some of the thrills that seem to be a prerequisite for a hit movie these days.