Tag heist

The image depicts a man with a bulbous clown-like nose, wearing a hat and carrying a club. He is portrayed against a dark background.

The Killing by Stanley Kubrick

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The image depicts a man with a bulbous clown-like nose, wearing a hat and carrying a club. He is portrayed against a dark background.

by Alex P.

I’ve always been drawn to crime films, from Fritz Lang’s “M” to classic film noir to Martin Scorsese’s extensive gangster film output, with their allure of hidden underworlds of organized crime and the handsome rewards it brings at the risk of it all falling apart at any moment. Whether you identify with the criminal masterminds or with the police detectives hot on their trails, it’s a strain of cinema that’s had appeal since the inception of film itself and 1903’s The Great Train Robbery.  

One sub-genre of crime that’s stuck with me is the heist film. There’s something exquisitely thrilling about watching a heist carried out from the planning stage to the execution where it all goes so right or so wrong; think Baby Driver and The Bad Guys for popular recent examples. 

Director Stanley Kubrick’s shadow still looms large over the art of film, but some people may not know one of his earlier films, The Killing, a 1956 heist noir that gave Kubrick his first critical success. Many know the 1968 ensemble comedy Dr. Strangelove, his last black and white film before the monolithic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fewer know of Lolita (yes, that Lolita), Spartacus, or Paths of Glory, but I suspect the most obscure are his first three films. Fear and Desire and Killer’s Kiss are independent, exploratory films where Kubrick was finding his footing; these were followed by The Killing, starring the elusive Sterling Hayden, which was a real home run.  

The Asphalt Jungle was a foundational heist films, and it seems clear that Kubrick wanted to emulate it a few years later with The Killing. Kubrick plucks Sterling Hayden from The Asphalt Jungle’s all-star cast to play Johnny Clay, the mastermind behind a heist at a horse-racing track. Clay remains a mysterious and dominating figure, and much of the story is dedicated to the setup of the heist and the ensemble of his hired co-conspirators. More of the tension comes from a psycho-sexual rift between George, the racetrack cashier, and his wife Sherry, who overhears the plot and schemes to take George’s money and run. This sub-plot strikes me as The Killing’s weakest aspect, as it is far too maudlin and the sets are cheap, complete with a fake parrot. The rest of the cast, though, comprise a thrilling ensemble of characters, each of whom plays a perfectly compartmentalized part.  

Johnny Clay, as played by Hayden, is a complete enigma. Just out of prison, he immediately starts moving on the heist. He conducts himself with an affect so cool and calculating that it strikes the viewer as sociopathic. My favorite participant in his heist is Maurice, played by Georgian wrestler Kola Kwariani. He’s a highly intelligent, thoughtful, soft-spoken man who works in a chess club, and it is tragic to watch Clay pay him to get drunk and start a fight, reducing a smart and sensitive man to hired muscle. Every participant is meticulously positioned to play a separate part in his scheme while remaining unable to implicate him if they fail. It’s so well-planned, and the execution is mesmerizing and unforgettable, but so are the inevitable snags along the way.  

When comparing The Killing to The Asphalt Jungle, I’ve found that the inherent moral ambiguity makes Kubrick’s heist film memorable, as the start of a theme that continued throughout his career. In The Asphalt Jungle, the charming and likeable criminals are served their just desserts, complete with a speech by the police to an eager press pool that feels straight out of a public service announcement. While in The Killing, the brief but poetic comeuppance that comes to the Clay at the film’s end comes instead from a cruel and simple twist of fate. Instead of seeking answers from the morals and standards and the laws of his era, Kubrick looked to bad luck and the randomness of the universe. 

Like many overlooked greats, The Killing can be found on Kanopy using your library card. Though I mostly use it for hidden gems that can’t seem to find their home in more commercial environments (take, for example, The Hudsucker Proxy), it still has recent blockbuster hits, as well as classic documentaries and more. 

Alex Pyryt is a DIY Instructor & Research Specialist at Howard County Library System Elkridge Branch. 

A young woman faces to the right, wearing black clothes and a fluttery grey cape holds a knife in each hand looking determinedly ahead, with a shadowy urban landscape full of towers behind her.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

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A young woman faces to the right, wearing black clothes and a fluttery grey cape holds a knife in each hand looking determinedly ahead, with a shadowy urban landscape full of towers behind her.
The cover of Mistborn: The Final Empire.

by Ben H.

What happens if the chosen one fails? What if the hero fails to defeat the dark lord? 

Brandon Sanderson’s original Mistborn trilogy imagines what that could look like.  

Full disclosure, I haven’t finished the trilogy yet, but I love the first two books so much (The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension) that I can’t resist writing a review. I’ll write a retraction if the third book is garbage (but it won’t be). 

A thousand years ago, someone gained access to a source of power, defeated something called the Deepness, and… remade the world into a dull, cruel, lifeless, ash-strewn place. He is now the Lord Ruler and has ruled over the world for a thousand years in what he ominously calls the Final Empire.  

The nobility live in finery in castles and vast manors, and the skaa are their hopeless and ragged servants. There is no middle class. Skaa are treated as subhuman.  

Vin is our protagonist. She is a half-skaa street urchin, thief, and con-artist. A mysterious thief named Kelsier rounds up a thieving crew for one huge job. He collects those with magical abilities and Vin rounds out his team.  

The magical systems are Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy. Allomancy is the most common and the most relevant for this review. Magic users ingest tiny amounts of metals (like copper, steel, or gold) and “burn” them in order to gain abilities. Some metals make you powerfully strong, some metals allow you to pull and push against other metals, basically giving you the ability to fly or hover, and some metals allow you to influence people’s emotions. 

The books mostly take place in Luthadel, a city that feels like Dickensian London seen through an Orwellian lens. There are elements that feel steampunky to me (Yes, I do think steampunky is a totally acceptable adjective). The main thrust of the plot for The Final Empire is the preparation for Kelsier’s big heist. À la Ocean’s Eleven, we slowly get introduced to each character and each character’s ability. 

Once the crew is assembled, Kelsier reveals that the scope of the heist is grand beyond imagining. Sanderson does a phenomenal job writing action sequences using his magic systems. They are a blast to read with real page-turning action.

If you read Mistborn, pay attention to the theme of disguise and appearance. I’d argue that clothing and dissimulation are major themes. Can the clothes you wear change how you feel? Change your personality? Change your characteristics? Are you a fraud if you look like something you don’t feel you are? What happens when you start to feel like the thing you’ve been pretending to be? Vin and company wrestle with a lot of these questions as the story unfolds. 

Speaking of epic-fantasy (smooth segue and recommendation alert), Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series is incredible (and set in the same extended universe as Mistborn). 

He is also the man responsible for finishing Robert Jordan’s sprawling The Wheel of Time series. Sanderson wrote the last three books of the 14-book series, and he wrapped up the epic story beautifully. Although it took me about 10 years to finish, you might be able to finish the books before the series premieres on Amazon on November 19.  

If you have the fantasy itch, try Sanderson’s Mistborn books. You won’t be disappointed. If you are, come talk to me at the Central Branch and I’ll try to convince you that you’re wrong. 

Ben Hamilton works at Project Literacy, Howard County Library’s adult basic education initiative, based at HCLS Central Branch. He loves reading, writing, walking, and talking (all the basics).