News for
Small Time Crooks (2000) More at IMDbPro »

2 articles from 2009

26 December 2009 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Everyone has their favourite Sherlock Holmes impersonator, as well as their favourite Holmes story, novel and film. For me the best Holmes is the one played on stage in 1974 by John Wood. But I admire Jeremy Brett's on TV and retain immense affection for Basil Rathbone, the first Sherlock I saw, partly because he looks like the Sidney Paget illustrations, and partly because he has the right combination of intelligence, wit, poise and world-weariness. I later came to wish that Rathbone had a better companion than Nigel Bruce's dithering, dim-witted Dr Watson. My favourite story is a toss-up between "The Red-Headed League" (which Woody Allen drew on for Small Time Crooks) and "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (I once had the privilege of showing its Hampstead setting to blind Conan Doyle fan Jorge Luis Borges), and my favourite novel is The Sign of Four. My favourite adapted »

- Philip French

4 December 2009 2:15 PM, PST | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

The delicate planning scenario (The Great Train Robbery, Rififi), the humorous spin (Small Time Crooks, Quick Change), the hidden master plan (Inside Man, The Lookout), the crew of hardened professionals (Ronin, Heat), the sexy, over-the-top robbery (Oceans 12, The Italian Job), and the aftermath (Reservoir Dogs); these are the six core orbits almost all heist films fall into. If one were to draw a Venn diagram depicting the overlap between the six circles, Nimrod Antal's Armored would land almost exclusively in the aftermath category. There's no planning involved, no comic relief, no last minute twist, no grandiose kidnapping, no inkling of men with enough skill to count how many exits there are from any room they're in.

No, Armored is a simple story of a group of blue collar workers who ferry millions in cash to and fro for an armored transport escort service and decide one day that they're going »

- Peter Hall

2 articles from 2009