I have absolutely no idea when I watched this film. I wouldn’t have seen it at the cinema, so it will have been at home sometime… something like two decades ago??

So, it’s a heist…

• Sean Bean is Spence, one of the men employed to retrieve a case.
  • He seems to be ex-military, and calls himself “a weapons man.” Pretty sure that’s not an innuendo. At least, not in this context.
• (It’s a pretty great cast: I am indifferent towards De Niro, myself, but that’s a very young Stellan Skarsgard, and I often love Jean Reno. I recognise Natascha McElhone but I have no idea from where. And Elliot Carver Jonathan Pryce. )
• He’s English, and has short hair again (I approve). He’s also super nervy, and likes to big-note himself.
• Suddenly Spence is taking over the gun-buying operation? And he’s very jumpy. This seems like a very bad idea.
  • It was. Sniper on the bridge, everybody shooting… Spence is very cranky. Absolutely no self-control.
  • And then, when they’re back in the car, he’s manic: pleased and excited way out of proportion.
  • And then he vomits. Is he high?
• I had completely forgotten how epic the driving is in this film. I know it’s what the film is known for, but knowing is different from seeing.
• Spence then tries to take over the briefing… but Sam / De Niro calls him, and there’s a scuffle, out of which Spence looks very poor. It’s beginning to sound like Spence isn’t the military man he claims to be.
  • And so he is let go. With a stark warning about needing to forget the people he was working for.
  • Wait, is that the end of Sean Bean in this film??

Oh well. Bean has left the building.

Turns out maybe I’ve never actually seen this film? I don’t remember a single thing about it.

• I genuinely love that we just jump straight in with a bunch of fellas meeting to do a criminal job for a woman. No training montage, no getting the band together, absolutely no explanation.
• Stellan Skarsgard is a dirty double-crosser?? Rotter.
• More films should have chase scenes and fights filmed in the amphitheatre at Arles (at least I assume it’s filmed on location).
• Deirdre has sold Sam and Vincent out? Or she’s been compelled to do so by her boss?
• Sam / De Niro is a Real Man: running with a gunshot wound (ricochet no less) to the side.
  • And then he directs the removal of the bullet himself.
• This movie is way better than the trailer makes you expect.
• The key car chase is truly fantastic.
  • The way that American films show people ostentatiously putting on their seatbelts in times of difficulty… ridiculous.
• “No questions, no answers.”

I have never seen this film before.

Verdict: Wannabe soldier/mercenary, without the arrogance to really pull it off.

Movies: 3 Beans dead: 2