Thieves Like Us (1974)
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88% of critics liked it
(17 reviews) -
66% of users liked it
(816 ratings)
Released in the same 12-month span as Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974), Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974) also tells a story of doomed outlaws in love. Depression-era criminals T-Dub (Bert Remsen), Chicamaw (John Schuck), and… More Released in the same 12-month span as Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974), Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974) also tells a story of doomed outlaws in love. Depression-era criminals T-Dub (Bert Remsen), Chicamaw (John Schuck), and Bowie (Keith Carradine) band together to rob banks after escaping from a prison farm. Hiding out with Dee Mobley (Tom Skerritt) and Keechie (Shelley Duvall), and then with T-Dub's in-law Mattie (Louise Fletcher) between bank jobs, the three crooks are a loyal group, but increasingly sensational news accounts of their bloodless robberies force them to split up before their next crime. After a car accident, Chicamaw leaves the injured Bowie in Keechie's care. Love blossoms between the two naïfs, compelling Bowie to find a way to balance his bond to Keechie with his loyalty to his friends and the need for money to head for Mexico. With the law closing in, Bowie and Keechie learn the hard way about the finite honor among thieves, and the need to survive. Adapted from the same Edward Anderson novel as Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night (1949), Altman, writers Calder Willingham and Joan Tewkesbury, and Altman's acting "regulars" reworked not just the classical crime movie but also the 1967 hit Bonnie and Clyde, presenting a resolutely unglamorous portrait of this Coke-swilling outlaw couple and the survivors' stoic drive to carry on. With the radio providing soundtrack and commentary, and the newspapers sending a veiled warning, Bowie and Keechie cannot escape the outside world, but they also cannot transcend it into the realm of myth. Rather than turning the crimes into stylish exploits, Altman's camera remains outside most of the robberies, observing the banal action on the street; he saves the slow-motion in the climactic shoot-out for the witnesses rather than the dead. His zoom shots hover between fragments of emotion and place, while they maintain their observational distance. Unfortunately for Altman (and Malick and Spielberg), audiences preferred outlaw glamour to genre-bending introspection. Still, with its deceptively laid-back tone, eye for expressive detail, and ear for ironic juxtaposition, Thieves Like Us takes its place in Altman's exceptional body of early 1970s work. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Directed By
- Robert Altman
- Written By
- Calder Willingham
- Genres
- Drama
R,
- In Theaters
- Feb 11, 1974 Wide
- Studio
- United Artists
Critic Reviews
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Jay Cocks, TIME Magazine
In many ways, Thieves Like Us is Altman's best work yet, his most stringent and evocative.
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Don Druker, Chicago Reader
At times unbearably objective.
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Variety Staff, Variety
Thieves Like Us proves that when Robert Altman has a solid story and script, he can make an exceptional film, one mostly devoid of clutter, auterist mannerism, and other cinema chic.
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Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Never portentous, never a mere spoof, this is a touching, intelligent, and -- in its own small way -- rather wonderful movie.
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Vincent Canby, New York Times
It is full of things to think about, that hang in the memory like the details of a banal crime story on page 32, which, though read quickly, won't go away. Somehow you know that this happened.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Keith Carradine
as Bowie
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Shelley Duvall
as Keechie
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John Schuck
as Chicamaw
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Bert Remsen
as T-Dub
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Louise Fletcher
as Mattie
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Tom Skerritt
as Dee Mobley
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Ann Latham
as Lula
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Rodney Lee Jr.
as James Mattingly
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Suzanne Majure
as Coca-Cola Girl
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Eleanor Matthews
as Mrs. Stammers
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John Roper
as Jasbo
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Mary Waits
as Noel
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William Watters
as Alvin
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Arch Hall Sr.
as Alvin
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Nicholas Merriwether
as Alvin
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Joan Tewkesbury
as Lady in Train Station
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Pam Warner
as Woman in Accident
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Al Scott
as Capt. Stammers
- Josephine Bennett
- Walter Cooper
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Max Lloyd Jones
as Sheriffs
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Howard Warner
as Bank Hostages
