Oct. 20, 2001 – What does a bored and over-privileged Oregon housewife do for fun? She could join up with two dashing bank robbers and have a rip-roaring time as the distaff member of "Bandits."
Which she does and, in the process, makes what critics have called a "off-beat comedic gem." The smooth-talking Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and his sidekick, the hypochondriac Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) have worked their way from Oregon through California robbing banks, having fun and becoming the most successful bank robbers in U.S. history. They are saving their rather ill-gotten gains for a quasi-legitimate life south of the border.
Then they meet Kate Wheeler (Cate Blanchett), willingly their accomplice but soon to become the object of a media-frenzy womanhunt as a supposed hostage. Leaving a trail of chaos, disguises and wrecked cars, the trio has a wonderful time plotting the perfect bank robbery. The others were just practice, it appears.
Kate finds herself in a terrible dilemma, falling for both of her cohorts who, combined, -– the one exciting, the other sensitive — make her ideal man, which the husband she abandoned in Oregon obviously, is not.
Director Barry Levinson, whose broad comedy ("Good Morning Vietnam") and satire ("Wag the Dog") have served him well, really has fun here, according to most critics. He's "great at letting his actors go and giving them plenty of room to explore their characters … and Blanchett, Willis and Thornton grab that and run with it," says CNN Reviews.
An Internet search found nary a bad review, which in itself could put some of us off, but … why not?
The movie is two hours long and rated PG-13 for some sexual content, language and violence.
It is playing at Market Square East on St. Thomas.
