Speaking on stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, right before the premiere of “Widows,” his first movie since “12 Years a Slave” (which was five years ago), director Steve McQueen talked about how important it was to set movies in the world of real, recognizable human beings.
A lot of us would second that sentiment, yet it’s still not what you expect to hear from someone who’s introducing a heist film.
The genre has been around in a major way since the early ’50s, and the template has always been this: When characters get together to plan and execute a robbery, we may see the quiet desperation of their lives, we may taste an ashy undertone of cynical “reality,” but it’s really all about the trip-wire cleverness of the crime itself.
Heist movies unfold in a caper-film bubble, and that, one way or another, is their pleasure.
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