One-sided “Bandit” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 197 (7398) dated 10/24/2022

Allan Ungar’s film “The Bandit” was released, based on the true story of the robber Gilbert Galvan Jr., who robbed 59 Canadian banks and jewelry stores in the 1980s. Josh Duhamel plays the role with an old-fashioned charm that’s hard to resist, but the film lacks consistency, says Yulia Shagelman.

The most implausible episodes of the adventures of Gilbert Galvan, who at one time received the nickname of the Flying Bandit, are accompanied on the screen by the caption-footnote “It was really.” Without it, modern viewers, especially young ones who have not made the era without mobile phones and ubiquitous surveillance cameras, perhaps really would have been hard to believe how easily the main character managed to elude justice for years. This lightheartedness, and the fact that Galvan always took a weapon with him, but never used it, turns the film into an almost comedic story about a charming con man in the spirit of Catch Me If You Can (2002). Although the young Canadian director Allan Ungar is, of course, not yet Spielberg at all, but his “Bandit” sometimes for some reason wants to seem like a biting social commentary on the injustice of capitalism.

The very first shots still pretend to be serious: in them Galvan (Josh Duhamel) is preparing for a robbery (as it soon turns out, far from the first), reloading a gun under his own off-screen words that people are not born bad – practice is needed in this matter. But then he sticks on the most ridiculous false nose and mustache, puts on a red jacket and a baseball cap with a shiny patch, more attached to the lead singer of some pop group of that time, and in this form he goes to work. At the bank, he acts with practiced ease, flirting with the teller, and manages to get away with the money before anyone, including a nearby police officer, realizes what has happened.

Having introduced us to Gilbert Galvan and his modus operandi, the authors go back several years to tell how he came to such a life. In 1984, Galvan, a US citizen, was arrested in his homeland for forging checks (of course, it was not he who was to blame, but the economic recession and society, which left the poor orphan no other choice, but, we must pay tribute to Gilbert, he himself says this with a lot of irony). Six months later, he escaped from prison and moved to Canada, determined to quit crime. To start an honest life, new documents were needed – Galvan bought them from a homeless man for $22 and thus became Robert Whiteman.

For some time, Gilbert, that is, Robert, really lives a law-abiding life, works as an ice cream seller and even starts a relationship with a respectable social worker Andrei (Elisha Cuthbert). But the recession only deepens, the Canadian economy is in as much trouble as the American one, and Robert is fired. And what do you order an honest guy to do, who managed to get a girlfriend and a child on the way? Of course, rob banks! Moreover, as our hero very quickly finds out, there are no serious security systems and security services in Canadian financial institutions.

Robert quickly turns into a virtuoso robber. He flies all over the country (hence the nickname Flying Bandit), comes up with witty schemes for breaking into banks, changing makeup, costumes and accents. It’s really fun to watch, although the filmmakers find themselves in the same trap as Andrea and the countless bank employees glaring at Robert, falling a little too much under their hero’s charm. They try to present him, if not as a victim of the capitalist system, then at least as a good guy with his own code of honor. And that he robs banks – so you don’t feel sorry for the banks, they themselves rob ordinary people. It is difficult to make out what is more in this argument – childish naivety or cynicism, but even Andrey repeats it, in which her husband’s activities do not raise any objections. This was not actually the case: Galvan / Whiteman’s real wife found out about his real name and profession only after his arrest, but the authors simply brush aside those facts that can make Robert less likeable, just as in the end they refuse to make anything out of his story. any conclusions other than those consonant with folk wisdom from “Beware of the car”: “They will help you, but don’t steal!”.