Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis in "Bandits."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film an: Stars: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton. Director: Barry Levinson. Rated: PG-13, with violence, profanity. Length: 123 minutes.

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(October 12, 2001) -- Barry Levinson's Bandits is a loopy, likable but long crime comedy whose plot and rich characters conjure the merry mood of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton star as escaped felons who rob banks. Their modus operandi is to go into a town, select a bank, visit the bank manager's house in the evening, hold that family overnight and then go with the manager to the bank first thing in the morning. That way, the robberies occur before the start of the business day.

The duo soon becomes mythologized as "The Sleepover Bandits."

They're funny and fun-loving. They take a nonviolent approach to bank robbery. And they fall for the same woman.

Like Butch Cassidy, Bandits spotlights two wacky bandits who are best friends despite wildly different personalities.

Joe (Willis) is a soft-spoken but determined man of action. He gets the job done. Terry (Thornton) is a brilliant-but-skittish hypochondriac. He comes up with the ideas, but often trips or sneezes his way through their execution.

And, as in Butch Cassidy, the outlaws put themselves in league with an attractive, similarly wacky woman and commence an uncomfortable three-way love affair.

She's Kate (Cate Blanchett), a housewife whose husband has ignored her. Coincidence puts her on the road with the duo, filling her empty life with adventure and passion.

Then she falls in love with both men, and life gets complicated.

Screenwriter Harley Peyton populates his script with wonderful characters. As brought to life by Thornton, Terry is a bona fide original. He's smart and eager with a sweet side. He's more shocked to find himself loved by the beautiful Kate than by any of his criminal activities with Joe. But he's also hysterically prone to every illness imaginable.

Thornton is a vibrant character actor who revels in complexity and eccentricity. He clearly has a ball in Bandits.

Kate is also a gem of a character, a complex, under-appreciated woman who finally finds happiness in high-risk crime capers. She's well-played by Blanchett.

Only Joe (Willis) is underdefined, in part because he is a quiet man of action. Compared to Terry and Kate, he's a blank page.

Bandits runs more than two hours because of an unnecessary framing device. The story is told, largely in flashback, with narration and interviews conducted by the host (Bobby Slayton) of a TV show in the America's Most Wanted mold. A straight-ahead narrative without that overview would have delivered a leaner, more effective film.