Jewelry and justice weave through Pond and Marcolina's LIFE AND CRIMES OF DORIS PAYNE

Talk about movies that get you feeling all kinds of things about their protagonist! THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DORIS PAYNE is one for the books. This short but incisive and nimble little documentary about a famous (infamous is probably the more correct word) elderly black woman jewel thief packs so many ideas, conflicting and otherwise -- about justice, race, friendship and trust -- into its short frame that you'll be glued to the screen, even as you're trying to figure out what you really feel and think regarding this woman.

The directors -- Matthew Pond (below, left) and Kirk Marcolina (below, right) pictured with their elegant and oh-so-unsettling leading lady, now 83 -- clearly have a relationship with their subject. I would guess they even like and enjoy her company (who wouldn't, expect maybe the law enforcement officers who keep arresting her?). Yet what is undoubtedly the movie's key scene, in which Doris "explains" to one of the directors what she "meant" when she clearly lied to him and/or the authorities about her whereabouts at a certain time, we suddenly see before us just how this woman manages to somehow justify herself against all odds, while breaking trust with the very people who are trying to tell her story. This is an amazing few moments, and they become the film's game changer.

And yet... Once we've seen and heard of Doris' history -- both as she tells it and as we hear it from a couple of friends, as well as meeting her son, who seems a chip off the old block but without the class, sass, and skill of his mom, and her daughter, who seems a decent sort, and in fact keeps her face covered so that she cannot be identified from the movie -- making a hard and fast judgment on the woman is not all that easy.
We may feel, as does the judge who must sentence her -- and I don't know that I've ever seen a judge who seems more reluctant and unmoored by what he must do -- every bit as confused and unsettled.

The movie can't help but raise the question of race and the history of blacks in America, but smartly does not "play" the race card, at least not in the sleazy and stupid manner of so many politicians. Doris raises the issue and it is clearly part of what has gone into her own history. But only part.  This woman appears to have a genetic predisposition toward stealing. (Is this possible? Why not?)

Granted, we could spend a good three or four hours on the subject of Doris Payne, her life and work. Yet the 74 minutes Pond and Marcolina give us seem enough to acquaint us with an endearing and very upbeat woman who somehow makes us sad. She also makes us think, and wonder at life and what it gives us, and how we use it.

The Life And Crimes of Doris Payne -- from Films Transit -- opens today in New York City at Film Forum. Elsewhere? I don't know, but maybe you can ask the distributor (see the Films Transit link above). In any case, watch for this one when it finally begins making the rounds of VOD and streaming.

Simon Aboud's cheery/scary COMES A BRIGHT DAY: jewels, heist, love and hot-headed robbers

One of the many small-but-enjoyable independent movies -- this time from Britain -- that get lost in the theatrical/
VOD/DVD shuffle, COMES A BRIGHT DAY has a number of things to recommend it. Not a great film by any means, nor even all that original, it nonetheless boasts a cast worth watching, a story that unfolds with both charm and excitement, while showing off the work of a first-time/full-length filmmaker, Simon Aboud (below) whom we shall surely hear from soon again.

This is an ensemble piece but with one character, a young fellow named Sam Smith (played by Submarine's Craig Roberts, below) around which the movie rumbles. Sam is bent on getting somewhere in business, and as quickly as possible, and so he applies to his life and work the "rules" that seem to guide so many people today. But instead of ending up ahead, he finds himself involved in a jewel heist that involves a high-end store, its proprie-tor, another couple of hostages, a pair of rather bizarre crooks and a young woman to whom Sam has taken quite a fancy just a tad earlier in this suddenly event-filled day.

Writer/director Aboud (who, for the record, is Paul McCartney's son-in-law) has a bit of a problem managing his movie's tone throughout. At one point there is cold-blooded murder, which is afterwards almost constantly threatened. Yet, considering what happens in the film, Aboud does manage to hold it all together, while giving pride of place to characterization. With actors as good as he's assembled, this pays off very well.

Though young Roberts has the "lead," it's that wonderful, charismatic actor Timothy Spall (above) who pretty much steals the movie. And he does not play the thief: That would be Kevin McKidd, shown below, left, with accomplice Josef Altin. We learn the least about the McKidd character, which works out OK, as we don't much care for or have any interest in him, other than seeing him thoroughly undone.

That love interest is played by the ubiquitous Imogen Poots, below, who looks just a little too old to match up with Sam -- yet this, too, manages to work somehow, due to the two actors' odd chemistry and how the story Aboud has created comes around and off in its charming and circuitous manner.

One more character needs to get some mention: Sam's friend and helper, Elliot, who works as the "chef" at a little take-away place nearby that also figures beautifully into the scheme of things. Eliot is played by a newcomer to my attention, Anthony Welsh (below), who is so very likable and winning in this role that he comes close to stealing the movie, too. It is Elliot's charatcer, along with that of the store owner played by Spall, who brings home the movie's necessary message: Don't bother putting on airs. Do your job and do it well, and let the rest fall into place.

That message used to work -- when western societies existed at least a little more along the lines of fair play. That it works again here is due mostly to the fairy godfather character who helps things along. But, gosh, it's swell to see some of the old "verities" in action again.

Comes a Bright Day, which never got a theatrical release on these shores, can be now be seen via Netflix streaming and on Amazon Instant Video and DVD. It's definitely worth a look.

Havana Marking's SMASH AND GRAB offers those naughty Pink Panther jewel thieves

Just a couple of days ago, one of the Pink Panthers escaped from a European prison, which makes this week's documentary debut all that more timely. SMASH AND GRAB: THE STORY OF THE PINK PANTHERS, the new film from documentarian Havana Marking, fills in those of us who pay little attention to our own low-level criminal breed here in the USA, let alone those of Europe (while wishing that our government paid more attention to the high-level, Wall Street/banker type of bad boys) on the tale of this hierarchical and highly organized (but in such a manner that makes it very difficult to infiltrate) gang of jewel thieves.

Ms Marking, shown at right, who evidently got access to high-level gang members, has devised her film in such a way that their identities are kept secret by recording their interviews, using actors to portray them, and then disguising even these actors by using a kind of animation and posterization (below and further below) in which the actors' identities cannot be ascertained, let alone that of the real criminals. While this works well as a disguise, it also distances us twice over from the real thing.

Consequently what sticks most post-viewing is what we hear and learn from a certain investigative reporter who herself has done a lot of leg work and interviewing to discover information about the gang members, who hail -- surprise! -- from a place known as the former Yugoslavia. But here, at least, were not talking genocide by the Serbs, against which jewel robbery seems like the proverbial walk in the park.

The most interesting information the movie has to offer, in fact, is how -- in the era following Tito's "liberal Communism," during which various ethnic groups and religions were held together peaceably via this more-or-less benevolent dictatorship -- civil war came to the territory, along with genocide and ethnic cleansing, and the resulting shards of hegemony became to a large extent criminal states. In the choicest bit of dropped info, we learn how these states deal with own criminals: They are sent abroad to rob in other countries and then bring the loot back home.

The Pink Panthers are a part (certainly now the most famous) of this criminal set that appear -- if the movie is to be believed -- to use the threat of violence rather than the real thing against the people they rob, thus cowing their victims (in Western Europe, Asia and the Mid-East but never in their own countries) into immediate surrender and help.

All these animated interviews are woven into footage of the actual robberies obtained via security tapes, along with interviews with that aforementioned journalist and some law enforcement officers, accompanied by a musical score that ranges from jaunty and upbeat to the sort of loud, generic stuff of a B-level suspense movie. The result is a relatively interesting hodge-podge that gives you some kind of introduction into this netherworld of well-concealed and perhaps state-inspired criminality.

If the movie is playing fair with us, these guys and occasional gals are robbing solely from the world's sleazy "one per cent" and since they are not actually killing the underlings who labor for that one per cent, I guess we can consider them the pseudo-Robin Hoods of the former Yugoslavia, who, according to the two interviews we get here, only want to make enough money to retire and live in a pleasant style with their loving families. Gosh -- ain't it the American Dream all over again.

Smash and Grab, from Music Box Films' relatively new Doppelganger Releasing division and running just 90 minutes, opens this Wednesday, July 31, at Manhattan's Film Forum. Elsewhere? Probably, but nothing has been posted on the distributor's sites just yet.  But since it's from Music Box, a DVD and/or Blu-ray should also be in the offing, eventually.