Hacker Cinema
Heist
2001 · Film · 107 min
Directed by David Mamet
Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.
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I liked Heist and especially liked the cast (Delroy Lindo and DeVito are excellent in everything I’ve seen them in as well) - but there’s something up with Mamets direction and cinematography that makes the movies look way cheaper and older than they are. Never understood it, not in Spartan or the Spanish Prisoner (another underrated film IMO) or Heist.
"The Conversation" is a masterpiece of the golden age of 70s film. "The French Connection" would be on my list too, for similar reasons. Popeye Doyle is a classic 70s protagonist.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned "The Birdcage" yet. Fantastic ensemble cast, and Hackman plays his part to perfection.
"Heist" and "Royal Tenenbaums" would finish out my list.
I love heist. Truly excellent film. It's been a while since I've seen it so I'll have to dig it out again.
Heist (2001) - Directed by David Mamet
It's not very well known or particularly well reviewed. It just clicked with me, I've watched it probably a dozen times. It's about a jewel heist and the drama surrounding it
> Arguably it’s much worse too as at least worth the physical bonds and metals, the thief has to carry them away
Admittedly once the crypto transfer is done there's no need to involve someone else to fence the goods, but note that one million USD of gold isn't actually that hard to move around (less than 17kg / 37lbs), although you'd stand out at airport security. I once carried a small quantity (by value) of silver coins through Manchester Airport, UK and attracted far more attention there than I wanted!
You can get away with way more if you're Gene Hackman and have a beaten-up truck :) (Heist, 2001, directed by David Mamet...)
Speaking as someone who works/consults in the financial sector, I'm afraid you really...should convince yourself...that you have to think about it.
First, the penalty for the strategy of "not-thinking" just on a tactical level isn't 1-2%, more like a minimum of 10%, and a maximum of 100% or more when you take into consideration accumulation over time.
Second, from a "strategic" perspective, "not-thinking" leads to "not-understanding" the myriad "choices" presented/available to you- where often what's presented is very different from what's available, and often serves someone else's interest much more than some other available-not-presented option may serve yours.
Third, the state of "not-understanding" leads to the use of seemingly helpful services like Mint. In doing so you are making an enormous sacrifice in terms of privacy. There are rules that prevent the state of your deposit/savings data from being shared by the custodian (many more than the state of your credit data, for hopefully obvious reasons). To use those services you have to provide them with your deposit/savings credentials, and once they have them, that data gets out in the wild, which can have unexpected deleterious effects, particularly if you are a person of color, or a woman, or wind up in a weak financial position, which may happen for unexpected, surprising reasons.
The financial industry is predatory. Full stop. The industry harvests from people who choose to not think about it. There is so much- too much- money in the world, but to everyone individually/organizationally it is a scarce resource. Every day I see grim occasion to think about apex predator Danny DeVito in a David Mamet movie called "Heist"-
"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money."
Good luck!
D.A. Freccia: You're a pretty smart fella.
Joe Moore: Ah, not that smart.
D.A. Freccia: You're not that smart, how'd you figure it out?
Joe Moore: I tried to imagine a fella smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, "what would he do?"
-- Jim Frangione, Gene Hackman, Heist (2001 film)
There are 2 films with this title, from 2001 and 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heist_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heist_(2015_film) Both have stellar casts.
In the film _Heist_, Gene Hackman's character is asked how he pulled something off. "I tried to imagine someone smarter than myself and I then I thought: What would he do?"
When I need to pull something off, I ask myself: What would Tim do?
> If we had a society with no poverty and perfect social mobility, and economic inequality didn't translate into social or political inequality, would it be that bad if there was also great variation in wealth?
That's saying that if money weren't, well, money, it wouldn't matter much if some people had a lot of it and others didn't have any.
But money is money; that's why they call it money [1]. Wealth inequality directly translates into social immobility, because the first thing rich people do is try to make sure their children stay that way, and there's only so much room at the top. Wealth inequality directly translates into political inequality, because why not? If you get to meet the President what are you going to talk about, but the political issues that directly concern you or your business?
Strict equality is impossible, of course. Some degree of inequality may in fact be desirable. But immense inequality tears society apart.
[1] Paraphrased from Heist, 2001. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252503/quotes