It never really happens like it does in the movies ... until it does.
The daring robbery at The Louvre in Paris on Sunday seemed like a plot taken straight from an action film. In just under seven minutes, thieves parked a truck with a cherry picker bucket lift outside the museum, using a construction site as cover, raised themselves up to a window, which they quickly broke through, and in a coldly professional manner lifted priceless jewels including nine pieces from France's legendary Crown Jewels. And it took place in daylight hours, just moments after one of the world's most famous museums opened, an incredibly popular tourist destination already filling with visitors.
The thieves allegedly fled on mopeds through the busy streets of Paris, if that's not a poetic and cinematic ending. I mean seriously. Can't you see it? You've seen it countless times before.
In classic pop culture fashion, it didn't take long for writers to begin listing favorite heist films, like this piece from the New York Times: "Watch These Six Heist Movies". And that got me thinking about some of my personal favorites. Of course the Oceans Trilogy immediately springs to mind, and I have always been a fan of the updated Thomas Crowne Affair with Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo. In fact, the TCA remake of the original Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway film was so good that studios are remaking the film again, this time starring Michael B Jordan.
When I think about what we find so appealing with the heist movie, I think about the thrill of a roller coaster and the classic line from Bender in The Breakfast Club: "Being bad feels kind of good." And, of course, there must be an element of the anti-hero - a character who is outside of standard conventions but has some redeemable qualities with which the audience empathizes. It's a cool conceit -- we want the bad guy to get away with it.
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