The Score movie review & film summary (2001)

The dialogue has a nice hard humor to it. When Nick meets a man in the park who is going to sell him a secret, the man comes with another man.

"Who's that?" asks Nick.

"My cousin" the man says.

"See that man reading the newspaper on the bench over there?" says Nick, nodding to the gigantic Burt. "He's my cousin. So we both have family here." Brick by brick, the screenplay assembles the pieces of the heist plan. Obligatory elements are respected. We learn that the Montreal Customs House is the most impenetrable building in Quebec, and maybe Canada. We go on a scouting expedition in a labyrinth of tunnels under the building.

We're introduced to high-tech equipment like miniature cameras and infrared detectors. We study the floor plan. We are alarmed by last-minute changes in plans, when the customs officials finally find out how valuable the treasure is, and install motion sensors and three cameras. And then the caper itself unfolds, and of it I will say nothing, except that De Niro's character does incredibly difficult and ingenious things, and we are absorbed.

That's the point. That we sit in the theater in silent concentration, not restless, not stirring, involved in the suspense. Of course there are unanticipated developments. The risk of premature discovery. Twists and turns. But there is not a lot of violence, and the movie honorably avoids a copout ending of gunfights and chases. It is true to its story, and the story involves characters, not stunts and special effects. At the end, we feel satisfied . We aren't jazzed up by phony fireworks, but satiated by the fulfillment of this clockwork plot that has never cheated. "The Score" is not a great movie, but as a classic heist movie, it's solid professionalism.