The heist movie is one of Hollywood’s most exhausted, guiltiest pleasures. It’s a format that has gone nearly unaltered for decades, dense with cliché and predictable beats. There’s always a team. There’s always a plan. There’s always a complication that seems to spoil the whole scheme, right until we learn it was all part of the plan. It makes heroes out of criminals and causes audiences to root for nothing more than seeing the rich get richer. It should be as played out as the Western, yet audiences keep coming back.
Every so often a new heist film turns the genre on its head to stunning effect. At the moment, two films in theaters are doing just that: the star-studded spinoff Ocean’s 8 and the ambitious indie American Animals. If you’ve got an afternoon to kill this summer, they offer a brilliant pair of perspectives on both genre and gender.
The initial announcement of Ocean’s 8 was met with plenty of skepticism, born both of experience and prejudice. But the film itself is a confident stunner, loaded with stars who play off each other to wonderful returns. It’s a dreamy ensemble film, wonderfully fun and charming. Rather than feeling like an echo of past Ocean’s films, Ocean’s 8 celebrates its predecessors. Director and writer Gary Ross’s attention-grabbing cuts and snappy dialogue feel like they’ve been turned up to 11, grounding themselves in familiarity. Ocean’s 8 knows that you’ve seen this story before and uses those expectations to create tension and great character interaction.
Related: Read our review of Hereditary
While Ocean’s 8 celebrates a legacy of heist movies, American Animals is a brutal critique of them. Based on the true story of four college students who attempted a sloppy heist of the Transylvania University Library in 2005, the film is eager to consider what role pop culture played in the crime. The Animals characters quote films excessively and study The Thomas Crown Affair, Heat and a shelf full of other standards to learn the basics. When the time comes for the deed, the team even dons Reservoir Dogs-style codenames. Their entire mission is rooted in this Hollywood narrative — that the perfect heist will offer the ultimate thrill.
After glimpsing the horizon of their future, the four college students are chasing an escape from what seems like an inevitable, dull future. The mere hint of suburban mediocrity causes them to melt down and pursue a life of crime. Animals is a film about modern masculinity — more specifically about the boys who treated Fight Club like a sacred text. It understands this perspective astutely and happily tears it to shreds.
Conversely, Ocean’s 8 uses gender dynamics to add new layers into the crime genre. While plenty of plots focus on hiding in plain sight, Ocean’s embraces the reality of how women can benefit from the imbalanced expectations of society. Early in the film, Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) swiftly explains that she wants “a ‘her,’ not a ‘him’” for a key role in their plan. Her reason? “A ‘him’ gets attention. A ‘her’ gets ignored. And for once, we want to be ignored.” It’s a perfect thesis statement, elegantly delivered and immediately justifying the film’s entire premise. That mentality powers the heist itself, playing off the deeply gendered dynamics of a red carpet gala.
When viewed back-to-back, Ocean’s 8 and American Animals provide two excellent takes on one of Hollywood’s most established genres. While they both stand on their own as great films, the opposing perspectives bring out the best in each other. If you get the opportunity, be sure to indulge.
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Feature image: Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros.
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