Robbery stories were among the first to appear on the screen. Of course, movies in this genre dont show positive examples, and there are much better ways to make money, for example, you can just work, play roulette online with real money, or even launch a startup. But this fact doesn't make these movies less popular. The final design of the genre with its typical attributes - careful preparation and team building - marked the release of The Asphalt Jungle by John Huston in 1950. Changing along with the world, the genre took on the characteristics of a particular era.
Bonnie and Clyde
A landmark movie for American cinema that ushered in the era of New Hollywood. The film's screenwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman, were inspired by the first movies of the French New Wave, whose influence is especially noticeable in the final scene. American cinema has always fed off the new blood of smaller cinemas for one simple reason: war-torn European directors, writers, and composers have traditionally made up Hollywood's main talent pool. However, post-war American cinema had time to mature by the 60s, so the release of Bonnie and Clyde was something of a cold shower for it.
So, it isn't surprising that the movie was received coolly by critics, but rather warmly greeted by a young audience hungry for change. The growing protest movement among them is reflected in the main characters - young and desperate burglars of the Great Depression era, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who travel across America in search of an escape from the colorless life in backwoods Texas.
Dog Day Afternoon
It's one of the masterpieces of New Hollywood. The hallmark of this period was that outsiders - heroes who had previously been shunned by the big screen and in whom there was nothing heroic about them - came onto the scene. Sonny Wortzik is an ordinary kid, unsophisticated in the life of crime. He decides to rob a bank to pay for the sex change operation of his beloved Leona, a transgender woman. The script is based on a Life magazine article about a real bank robbery. Moreover, one scene mentions the recent uprising of inmates in a correctional facility in the same state of New York, an important milestone in the prisoners' rights movement.
The current agenda isn't the movie's main virtue. Al Pacino's energetic, expressive performance, Sidney Lumet's lively and suspenseful direction, and Frank Pearson's precise, Oscar-winning screenplay are what made Dog Day Afternoon one of the most important movies of the decade.
Small Time Crooks
Small-time crook Ray Winkler considers himself a criminal genius. Working as a dishwasher, he comes up with another ridiculous robbery plan: buy the premises next to the bank, open a cafe in it to divert attention and dig an underground tunnel leading directly to the safe. Things don't go according to plan, but his wife Frenchy's cooking is to the taste of many customers, and soon there's a line of blocks to their cafe. What was supposed to be a front for robbery grows into a lucrative legitimate business.
Public Enemies
Michael Mann is a recognized master of suspenseful action movies. His stories often center on a conflict of strong and irreconcilable adversaries.
The plot, based on true events, centers on the famous bank robber of the 1930s, John Dillinger, and the FBI agent pursuing him, Melvin Purvis. The faded picture with muted colors, the atmosphere of corneredness convincingly conveyed by the hand-held "live" camera and the sparse but accurate close-ups of faces.
The Town
A movie with a strong Boston accent, directed and partly written by Ben Affleck. Apparently, the director has very contradictory feelings about his hometown: his Boston, behind its drabness and viciousness, radiates a strange magic that keeps you coming back to it all the time. In other words, you can leave Boston, but the City on the Hill will never leave you.
Struggling with one's past legacy becomes a central motif of the movie, squirming through the plot twists and turns. The protagonist, Dougie McRae, a former hopeful hockey player, has blighted his athletic career with an addiction to alcohol and drugs. He runs a small Boston-style business with his friends: robbing banks and armored cars. He does it, it must be said, without much enthusiasm. However, his partner Jem, played by Jeremy Renner, and an FBI agent, not too choosy in his methods, prevent him from going out of business. There is, of course, a woman, Claire Keesey, who can ruin Dougie and his accomplices, but can also become their hope for salvation.