Review
The Third Bandit (2016)
Written by Chris Whyte
'The Third Bandit', on opening, appears to
operate in the room marked 'young
delinquent road movie', the door of which
was kicked open by Malick's 'Badlands',
decorated by 'Bonnie & Clyde' and smashed
up by Micky and Mallory in 'Natural Born
Killers'. Where those films had the luxury of
feature run times, director David I Strasser
uses his ten short minutes in a mystifying
way. What starts as a beautiuful, slow burn
introduction of our central duo soon turns
into something altogether more unsatisfying
as a large section is devoted to showing us
how much of a psychopathic wild-card their
associate Donovan (Will Kemp) is. Donovan, in
his own words, is an 'agent of change' rather
than a terrorist or cult leader. Yes, and I'm a
fitness intructor.
The performances are decent, if wantonly
hammy (though Samantha Hum is excellent,
subtle) and the cinematography, outside of
the slow motion exterior shots is handheld
because, you know, we need to know just
how CHAOTIC everything is guys. IT'S
CHAOTIC AND WE'RE SHOWING
YOU....because the script sure isn't going to.
In a way it's a shame that Strasser didn't
conform to expectations and show us the
couple on the road, heisting and killing their
way to some kind of redemptive (or not)
conclusion; it would have made a much more
interesting ten minutes; the exterior shots
are beautiful- what a shame that they only
bookend the piece. Instead we have what
amounts to little more than a drama school
improvisational workshop set in a single
room. CHAOTIC remember?
What would have thrilled is opening up the
story, referring to the events depicted and
showing us our newly made trio on their
adventure after they had left Donovan and
his chums. Still, as a whole it's fairly
unremarkable and clichéd in the wrong ways.
Perhaps a 'part two' would provide the thrill
that was promised.