The Grey Fox. One last heist and he got the girl.
Trainspotting. Not exactly a heist, but definitely one last score and enough burnt bridges to make sure nobody ever asked him again.
Good point. My mistake.
Michael Mann’s Heist has Gene Hackman doing one last big job before forced into retirement (in his penultimate job, he was caught on CCTV) but in a break from apparent tradition he does not in fact fall in love while doing this.
If we want to be fine-grained about this, there’s probably a distinction to be made between “One last big score before retirement” and “Already retired but dragged back in”. The former simply makes sure the stakes are high; the second gives us some moral basis for rooting for a criminal.
Swordfish (godawful hacker thriller) is one of the latter; Butch’s story in Pulp Fiction one of the former.
I realize your expertise had been questioned, but this retort is unnecessarily rude. Dial it back.
No warning issued.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Oceans 11 was supposed to be Danny’s last big heist right?
12 was because they were forced to (so I don’t count it)
13 was for revenge (so really it wasn’t even about the money)
The Ref isn’t really about this trope, but Denis Leary’s character does give a little speech about “always coming back for one last score…that big retirement score.”
Somewhat. Roy Earle (Bogart) gets sprung out of prison, via bribery, specifically so that he can help pull off a Big Score. He never comes right out and says it will be his last, but he gives the impression of one who, having done time, would prefer to settle down and go straight as soon as his buddies will let him.
Hijack… in real life, how many professional thieves have ever actually earned enough money to retie and live on the beach in Rio or on the Riviera?
The CLOSEST I can think of is those ENglish guys who pulled off the big train robbery in the early Sixties- (as depicted in Phil Collins’ movie Buster). But while they got away, they didn’t seem to be living in luxury.
“Heist” with Gene Hackman and Delroy Lindo is the one that I thought of. (But it was David Mamet - not Michael Mann).