FILM REVIEW: BANDITS, MORE TO THE FILM THAN THE EYE CAN SEE.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead)

Aside from the excellent performances by Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett, and fortunately, a more than competent one by Bruce Willis, Bandits serves to please with comedy, some action sequences, a stellar cast, a pretty nifty soundtrack and a smart script, which has the potential to appeal to the most critical film buff as well as the average, easy-going movie-goer. But what I find most interesting about the film is one particular perspective I got from the plucky story that exudes a multiplicity of meanings. Jokes, physical gags and witty dialogue aside, Bandits is actually(in my very subjective opinion and viewing), a cleverly veiled satire on the movie or even the media industry and its relationship to the general public, specifically the viewers of the world. How? Consider this.

Let us begin with the actors themselves. Notice how Cate Blanchett's character is named Kate Wheeler. Ignore, the "K" in the latter's name, and basically the actress and the character she depicts have the same well...name. Recount a scene whereby Thornton's neurotic-bandit character Terry Collins is stranded in a hotel room with Kate and they engage in a conversation whereby Terry begins to tell her every phobia he possibly has. One of them was being terrified of antiques, especially antique furniture. Terry also confesses to being a very nervous person who has a disorder of fearing a lot of things. Fans of Thornton know that some of the fears, particularly the one of antique furniture, that Terry confesses to are actually Thornton's real life fears being an actual offbeat person himself. Joe Blake, smirks, wise-assness and all are some of the characteriestic Bruce Willis traits we all have come to know. Therefore, the script calls for the actors to put a bit or perhaps a facet of themselves into the characters they play. It not only makes the performances convincing but it is an essential ingredient to the underlying and constant allegorical message that these bandit characters can very well represent the actors themselves or rather actors and celebrities in general!

If that's the case, then, the whole world literally becomes a stage for these renegades. The banks they rob represent the "stage" or in more cinematic terms the "sets".Caught on security cameras and having their trail followed more by a television documentary than the police, they carry out their work and almost look like actors re-enacting scene after same scene, like a formulaic plot. This leads to the camera and the tv screen to turn into a symbol of the collective eye of the public with which the people watch and make conclusions about how the story of these bandits come across to them. One of their heists becomes a failure when the bank manager refuse to open the safe and hand them the money. When Blake threatens her with a gun, the bank manager disbelieves him and doesn't allow him access stating that from watching him on television, "everyone knew Joe wouldn't hurt anybody". At that moment, the bank manager was reacting to Blake in relation to how she perceived him on television. How could she be so sure that Blake would not really turn 180 degrees and kill her in cold blood? Many would justify that on camera, it's proof that Blake isn't a violent person and that there has been no history of any hostage killings. But to what extent can reports and even proof on camera be trusted anyway? At the end of the day, they were merely reports of a reality and not reality itself. A classic example that people perceive celebrities and famous people according to how they are presented by the media. It turns out that Blake was not a killer but at the time, the bank manager couldn't have possibly known anything else except her own perception of his nature influenced by the tube.

Another thing which further proves the point is how they manage to fool the public by staging a fake showdown with double deaths on national television. They use technical wizardry(notorious of a certain film making industry residing in the hills), like air shots and fake blood, to pull the shooting off with the help of Blake's cousin, Harvey who aspires to become a professional Holywood stuntman. For a an extremely intense and dramatic end to their "show", the ambulance carrying their "bodies" gets into an accident and erupts into an elaborate explosion with Harvey running around in flames to add the finishing touch to an ending worthy of a Holywood blockbuster. Joe and Terry are pronounced dead by the duped authorities to a public who witnessed all that is caught on camera. Kate gets the 1 million dollar reward for her supposed assistance in telling the police about their last heist. The nation is fooled once again into thinking how the story ended for the sleep-over bandits. They are, thus, oblivious to the true ending, that is, the bandits were alive and well in paradise having managed to escape it all. The host, of the crime series documenting the bandits, mentions how people would like to view these robbers' story as some kind of a fable. Indeed the publicised lives of those constantly in the limelight are like fables to us. And as long as they are being perceived by us, they are in actual fact, fables. The only definite truth of what we see on television and what goes on behind the scenes is the reality that these celebrities/politicians/singers/performers/public figures are in, not us. They know what really goes on, not us. More often than naught, we are just the viewers and never physically present in such publicised events. Bandits points this out with a message, judge people or a situation presented by the media at your own discretion. Whatever conclusion we come to about anyone or anything may be far from the true reality of things. Regardless of how convincing it all looks.