Smarter characters = bigger payoff

Enough of my soap-boxing. I'm sorry to put you all through that. (Even though "you all" is no one right now.) The next few posts will be about movies instead, which is really my milieu and much more in line with what my friends and family would expect from me.

I recently received The Lavender Hill Mob from Netflix and had a great time watching it. I had picked up Kind Hearts and Coronets not long before and wanted to see more from Ealing Studios. What strikes me most about those comedies are how smartly the characters behave. You have good guys and bad guys, even though the "bad guys" are usually the protagonists, but the two roles are always portrayed well. You're dealing with smart/average cops and robbers. No bumbling cops facing intelligent thieves or incompetent criminals up against genius policemen. It's a refreshing style. The only recent movies I can think of that have kept this trend in style are Michael Mann's Heat and Miami Vice as well as Soderburgh's Ocean movies.

Miami Vice is a movie about smart cops taking on smart villains from the cops' point of view. Heat is the opposite. No one is making scripting sacrifices for either side in these movies and consequently the stories are fulfilling and the audience doesn't feel cheated.

The Lavender Hill Mob is a comedy, but it still manages to treat the audience with some respect and keep the characters' characters intact. You would think that a 1950's comedy about regular Joe's who decide to commit a robbery would involve some ineptitude by either the police or all of the men involved in the heist. Surprisingly the police and the robbers all behave as well as they possibly can. These guys aren't criminal masterminds, but they are completely believable.

I get frustrated with movies like The Thomas Crowne Affair and The Score because the criminals are so impossibly smart and the cops so completely ineffectual that there's no real suspense. Those movies exist to make thieves look awesome and cops look like idiots. The Ocean movies, (11, 12, 13...well not 12 so much) are great examples of smart story-telling and great heist moments. The cops aren't really an issue, because they're never involved. It's just underworld criminals taking on corporate criminals. Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 13 are really engaging movies and lots of fun. Taken in turn with Miami Vice, Heat and older fare like The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers, they're good lessons in sound film making. Smart characters interact better with each other and provide more thrills and suspense.