The heist is a metaphor for anyone who feels they belong outside the system. After pulling back the hood on 41 different films I’ll tell you scientifically why you love them..
And the full ‘Anatomy Of A Heist’ Series here: charleskunken.com/season4
I’ve spent the last several years trying to understand why we love stories, as of late focusing on heists.
Themes
Good movies are about more than meets the eye. It’s why you might have loved ‘The Sandlot’ (1993) whether or not you’ve watched a day of baseball in your life.
The field of play, so to speak is merely the delivery mechanism for the greater theme.
Sandlot was about friendship and youth just as ‘The Karate Kid’ (1984) was about the triumph of the underdog (not karate).
Heists
One of the defining characteristics of the heist genre is the big score, however, as you might guess these stories aren’t about robbery or crime.
The heist is a version of David vs. Goliath except in this version David’s actually been training in secret for years.
Good heists are actually about these 3 things:
1. Individualism
Our heroes don’t conform, they see the playing field differently. They take time to study the rules so that they can break them. They represent standing up to the systems and conventions of society.
2. Cleverness & Patience
Our master thieves carefully plot and plan, sometimes for years to hone their skills, knowledge, and ability to execute. They work in the shadows without seeking recognition. They work while their rivals and enemies sleep. They work in quiet, confident in how their labor will pay off. Their preparation and diligence makes them the smartest guys/gals in the room.
3. Art
The quiet cleverness of our thieves is their creativity, their art. The payoff for them is the work. They steal because that’s what thieves do. Thomas Crown didn’t need the money. The master thief honors the muse.
How They Do It (The Storytellers, That Is)
It is important to note that our heroes never steal from good people. They only rob from those who deserve it (or wouldn’t miss it). This convention is one of the big reasons we side with them. (Siding with our anti-heroes will be another post altogether).
Next week we’ll begin our study of this and the 15 other conventions that all the best heist stories contain.
There’s a formula in storytelling, rooted in our primal understanding of how the world works. It’s the reason some stories are good and some are bad – they include the basic building blocks in a satisfying cadence.
After analyzing 41 different films in the historical record of the heist genre ranging from ‘The Great Train Robbery’ (1903) to ‘Logan Lucky’ (2017) I’ve reverse engineered the formula for this one.
Starting next week I’m gonna share my findings as well as my list of the tier 1 films. Stay tuned.
Have some thoughts? Feel free to drop a comment or hit me up: charlie@charleskunken.com
Other Posts In The Anatomy Of A Heist Series
The Skytalkers podcast recently aired an episode in which they ran Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) through the heist tracker - the one we made together during paternity leave ;) charleskunken.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-heist-the-16-conventions-part-1-of-3).
Star Wars plus heists? Yea…we just had to take this inspiration from our friends at Skytalkers and contribute our own ‘Milk in The Matrix version of ‘is Solo a heist film?’