Trance (2013)

Gotchya films that spin on corkscrew narratives –- “Manchurian Candidate” is my favorite -– succeed only if we care about the characters and only if we dig the deep pit the screenwriters have tossed them into. Danny Boyle’s “Trance” is all crazy turns, pulled rugs, blown loyalties, and bad guys still gabbing after their skull has been shot off. The shocks and surprises hit so often and so outlandishly OTT, it passes suspense and becomes a comedic parade of drunken one-uppers. Numbness sets in. James McAvoy works at an auction house that falls prey to a heist just as a Renoir goes to sale. The work is seemingly lost and our hero is cracked on the skull, leading to memory loss. The heist master (Seymor Cassell) won’t have that and when torture fails, he hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to peer inside McAvoy’s brain. So to speak. The headachy flash edits are frantic and too hip. The flat characters don’t help. I really could have lived without ever hearing surround sound of vaginal hair being shaved. Boyle, it appears, could not. And if you can get past the firestorm finale without laughing to excess, I salute you. C

Heist (2001)

Heist films – and this one is called “Heist” – are as contrived as any rom-com: The old crook is on one last score, has a big screw-up whoops, and gets strong-armed by a higher-up villain pushing a real final game with a massive pay day, all seasoned by double crosses, switched vehicles, fake outs, shoot outs, the sad but quickly overlooked death, and the coup de grâce gotch’ya. David Mamet, he of the pen is mightier than the sword school of film, serves up no different a dish here. Gene Hackman is the old crook, and Danny DeVito is the higher-up (so to speak) villain. Much of “Heist” is clever, and the dialogue stings and slings, and bruises. Yet, it barely gets the heart pumping as we wait for the next surprise and shock, none surprising or shocking. There’s little joie de crime here as in “Ocean’s Eleven,” or spastic blood-letting as in “Reservoir Dogs.” The opening 1940s-era Warner Bros. logo is meant to recall storied classic film noirs, but the movie never rises to the occasion. All praises to the cast, especially Hackman and Delroy Lindo, who carry the film. B