How sad is this?

Great Film overall

From my favorite movies..

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This could be a good movie but i turned it off at the 3rd minute into it. Why? These people have the nerve to show prettiest city in Europe, Budapest (i grew up there, so i know every square inch) and have the big sign over it, WARSAW! Go and get educated. Or you are just t average liberal film media where things does not matter? It matters for me. How do you dare to miss lead people? Guess beuse you think we are dumb enough here to know. But there is when you are wrong, there will be always someone like me to have a word. Will that matter? Probably not. With the billions of dollars y'all make do not give a s.h.i.t about me. But i will be there.

Even with the acting talents of Kurt Russell, Matt Dillon and Terence Stamp this feels like a low rent and lower budget version of the Ocean 11 type films but with more grittiness and less smugness.Some of the Canadian location shooting helps with the atmosphere. Rusell plays a likable ex con Crunch who has done time in a Polish prison for his brother Nicky (Dillon.) Crunch recruits his old team together including his deceitful brother to forge replicas of valuable historical books that they plan to steal.Jay Baruchel plays the rookie so he gets the exposition along with the audience. Stamp plays an informer forms a comical double act with an uptight Interpol agent who is hell bent on bringing down Crunch and his gang.The film wants to be a stylish caper film like Gambit, with fast action and plenty of quips. Its formulaic and succeeds largely due to the charm of its cast. Anyone who have seen the television series Hustle or Leverage will suspect that there is more to the plot and the denouement is told in alternate flashbacks as we find out who the real mark was all along.

After committing an art heist and subsequently being betrayed in Poland "Crunch Calhoun" (Kurt Russell) is sentenced to seven years in prison. Once he gets out he is left with very few options so in order to pay his bills he eventually becomes a motorcycle daredevil. Then one day he decides to return to his life of crime and enlists the help of an old colleague named "Paddy MacCarthy" (Kenneth Welsh). Not long afterward his disreputable brother "Nicky Calhoun" (Matt Dillon) also joins the group which now consists of Crunch's wife, "Lola Calhoun" (Katheryn Winnick), Crunch's apprentice "Francie Tobin" (Jay Baruchel) and another old acquaintance by the name of "Guy de Cornet" (Chris Diamantopoulos). Together they plan to steal a painting by Georges Seurat known as "Model from the Back" which is inadvertently being stored at a heavily secured customs storage facility on the Canadian-American border. Now rather than reveal any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film has a both a little comedy and a few surprise twists to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn't much chemistry between the actors and the plot wasn't nearly as coherent as it should have been which hurt the film overall. That said, although it was adequate enough to fill the time, it clearly wasn't as good as it could have been and because of that I rate it as about average.

A real gem! This film deserves much higher reviews!The way the film was edited and shot with flashbacks and flash forwards intersecting the current storyline makes The Art of the Steal very engaging. Too many films nowadays throw together big names, action and crude humour without any substance. Art of the Steal managed to do a solid job focusing on the story while feeding the audience bits of information that will come together at the end.The Art of the Steal is a mix of Ocean's Eleven series with Gambit and Incognito (1997). Highly highly recommended