Near Perfect Film (a review)
I wrote a review of this movie on my blog Rom Coms and the Real World. You can read the full thing here: http://realworldromcom.blogspot.com/2012/10/review.html
How to Steal a Million belongs in the rare category of films that manage to combine comedy, suspense, and romance into one seamless package (the other one that springs to mind is 1963's Charade.) A somewhat neurotic Audrey Hepburn and an oh-so-charming Peter O’Toole join forces to steal a fake work of art, all while drenched in mod style. It’s one part heist movie and one part romance, the kind of movie I could easily see men and women enjoying equally (which is a rare thing among rom coms.)
“I don’t sell them to poor people, I only sell them to millionaires and they get great paintings like this one.” That’s the central argument of Charles Bonnet, master art forger and father to Audrey’s Nicole. Art forgery runs in the Bonnet-blood, Nicole’s grandfather carved his own Cellini’s Venus (modeled after Nicole’s grandmother). Charles’ forgeries have gone undetected for ages and he’s grown cocky. So cocky in fact, he lends his prized Venus for display at a Paris museum. The only problem is the museum makes it a policy to run tests on all of its art. One quick examination would be enough to reveal the forgery and put Charles in prison for life. To save her father the fate of prison (and herself the fate of exile in America), Nicole decides to steal the unstealable Venus. To do so she enlists Simon Dermott (O’Toole), an art thief she accidentally shot in the arm one night in her house.
Peter O’Toole, with his bright blue eyes and equally dazzling smile, is perfectly cast as the assumed-art-thief. He’s charming and flirtatious with just a little bit of goofiness thrown in. O’Toole’s malleable face perfectly registers how flabbergasted he is at just about everything Nicole does. “I’m a society burglar, I don’t expect people to rush around shooting me.”
Hepburn is also great, playing a wealth woman always on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to her father’s felonious hobby. Nicole asks Simon to meet her for drinks to enlist his help on the Venus heist. Her normally chipper persona is replaced with a femme-fatal one. Dressed head-to-toe in black lace, Nicole attempts to put on the cool exterior of a woman accustomed to a life of crime. Only Simon’s facial reactions (and his occasional faux-noir-speak) let us in on the joke- that he thinks Nicole is being just as ridiculous as the audience does. It’s a brilliant scene that establishes....
Read the full thing at: http://realworldromcom.blogspot.com/2012/10/review.html