Oops, Was That A Felony?

Every heist film I've ever watched has made me want to steal. It’s not about the money, money is literally just paper and so stressful - it’s about the identity. Some films actually convinced me I should do it. Like, that thieves are always conventionally hot like Julia Roberts in Ocean's 11, or clever like Julia Roberts in Ocean's 13. Resourceful like Jane Levy in Don't Breathe (there wasn't a sequel, I’ve decided that narrative doesn't exist for me, so please don't look it up), or morally nuanced like Chris Pine in Hell Or High Water. I even saw Now You See Me and came away profoundly impressed by magicians, which is horrifying because magicians are historically the most ick-inducing profession, but Isla Fisher was just so good. And I read Anxious People and had this total epiphany that life is really unfair, so maybe robbing a conglomerate like JP Morgan Chase is the ethical thing to do? But I'm like really scared of getting caught.

I am not a character in National Treasure. I’m not the lead in any Nicolas Cage film. Valley Girl, maybe.

Anyway, this isn't about any of those films, this is about a specific category of heist film. Less action-thriller, more aspirational. They're stylized, feverish and way more relatable. To me.

I call them "influencer-slash-criminal" films.

In 2009, Alexis Neiers, Rachel Lee, Nick Prugo, Courtney Ames, Diana Tamayo and Roy Lopez Jr. were arrested and charged with a series of residential burglaries involving the homes of people I’ve literally spent my entire life trying to manifest a lunch with. Like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson and several other people whose addresses they had apparently just googled. They stole a combined total of around three million dollars in jewellery, cash, and handbags. Iconic.

The "Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch" (which is such a clunky, un-marketable name, let’s be real thank god they rebranded) went straight for the wardrobes. They weren't looking for stocks or bonds or, like, bearer bonds? Wait, is that what The Bear is about? Anyway, these divas were not interested in liquid assets, they just wanted to dance in Paris Hilton's heels. They said it was about the feeling of being part of that lifestyle. A feeling that apparently could only be resolved by possession. Which is, when you think about it, just like shopping.

It’s the first heist in history where the primary motive was a desire to inhabit someone else's life. And it made me think seriously about what I would take if I got the key to Orlando Bloom’s house. I'd probably just raid his fridge for whatever greens he's drinking, take a cold plunge and call it a day. Maybe take a Ziploc bag of his supplements so I could google them later. Since LOTR ended he's like barely famous anyway.

So The Bling Ring is a film about that. Officially it's a satire and the characters are "fictionalized," but I'm a believer that actors absorb a little bit of every character they play. They carry that identity in their marrow. I think for Emma Watson "Nicki" is the one who actually committed all those driving violations. The film was written and directed by Sofia Coppola and released by A24 in 2013, back when A24 was still a brand-new baby moodboard of a production company. The film is based on a Vanity Fair article called "The Suspects Wore Louboutins" by Nancy Jo Sales. The soundtrack is also incredible - so important to set the vibe of a film. Critics have said it was too shallow, too detached, not interested enough in her characters' psychology, to which I say - these are people who robbed Paris Hilton's house because the door was unlocked. How much psychological breakdown do you need? The shallowness is the point. And that we're still talking about it more than a decade later suggests that Coppola did get something about our relationship with fame.

Spring Breakers is the only film in this syllabus that isn't based on real people, which almost makes it more disturbing because you're telling me all of this came out of Harmony Korine's brain? Unprompted? Like, it’s not a dramatised police report, it’s just his vibe? Terrifying.

While The Bling Ring let us judge some real people for their poor choices from a safe critical distance, Harmony looked at a neon bikini and a bomb pop and had a vision. This is a very aesthetic film. Basically a 94-minute music video directed by someone who clearly spent a lot of time thinking about what the real American Dream looks like during two-for-one happy hour.

And the look is kind of the point, because one thing about Spring Breakers is that it's pretty basic. Like the "heist" is almost embarrassing, it’s literally just four college girls doing a quick smash-and-grab at a chicken shack to fund their spring break. But then they fall in with this drug dealer called Alien after he bails them out of jail. He’s not even like, a hot drug dealer, and somehow they end up in the middle of a gang war. Basically a depiction of what happens when your vision board goes to hell.

Is this what we look like to God? Or just to A24?

So now we have American Animals, which I think is my favourite because it's so embarrassing but then it loops around into being cool again.

Four college boys in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004 - Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk, and Chas Allen III (you just know this one comes from money), decide that their lives lack a certain cinematic narrative. Which is a feeling I think most of us have had, and most of us resolve by drinking spicy margaritas and DMing Andrew Garfield. Spencer and Warren resolve it by planning to steal a first edition of Audubon's Birds of America from their university library. They prepare by watching heist films. Literally used Ocean's 11 as serious research. Boys. Then they execute by tasing the librarian, I don't think that was the plan, and shoving rare books into their backpacks. And it does get worse, because they drive directly to Christie's in New York to have them appraised. Like these are normal books they definitely own.

What's wild and amazing about this film, which is based on the book American Animals by Eric Borsuk and directed by Bart Layton, is that the actual, real-life thieves are interviewed in it. You’re watching the actors look gorgeous, and then it cuts to the real guys who just look like guys you’d see in the juice aisle at Target. It really exposes the gap between the aesthetic of a crime and the actual, clammy reality.

Where American Animals becomes cool is in how this ill-planned, poorly executed crime became the platform that allowed a group of sensitive boys to become who they truly wished to be. Which was not criminals, obviously, it was artists. Warren went on to study filmmaking. Spencer paints. Eric wrote the memoir this film is based on.  Chas is a fitness coach, sculpting the physical body. I'm happy for them, I really am.

The films in this genre understand that being enviable is at least fifty percent of why these people are stealing in the first place. Maybe sixty. These characters don't want to steal things, they want to be someone. In this landscape "crime" is just another trick you turn for engagement, status, and ultimately fame.

These "influencer-slash-criminal" films highlight that what we actually want - what these characters want - what we have all wanted at some point while watching someone else's life play out on screen, is for the heist to be iconic. Unforgettable. Problematic in a way that still gets us a sympathetic profile in The Cut. We want the mugshot to look good, we want the trial to have a moment. Because a prison sentence is temporary, but a well-executed redemption arc could change your life forever.

Ultimately, this storyline is not for me. Like I’m literally terrified of being perceived in a way I can't control. But if there's one thing I'm taking away from all of this, it's that if you're ever caught mid-heist, do not apologise. Claim it was an immersive performance art piece about the redistribution of wealth. People love art.