Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
The Score (2001) is a turn of the century heist movie that has three massive stars on its poster. At this time Robert De Niro was a two-time Oscar winner and six-time nominee. Edward Norton had been nominated twice as a young actor and Marlon Brando is an eight-time nominee and two-time Academy Award Winner. For those counting, that’s 16 nominations and four wins between the three legs of The Score’s tripod.
“An aging thief hopes to retire and live off his ill-gotten wealth with his lover when a young kid convinces him into doing one last heist that comes with a large payout.”
Director: Frank Oz
Writers: Daniel E. Taylor, Kario Salem, Lem Dobbs, Scott Marshall Smith
Staring: Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett
Release Date: July 13, 2001
IMDB
The Score (2001) is a turn of the century heist movie that has three massive stars on its poster. At this time Robert De Niro was a two-time Oscar winner and six-time nominee. Edward Norton had been nominated twice as a young actor and Marlon Brando is an eight-time nominee and two-time Academy Award Winner. For those counting, that’s 16 nominations and four wins between the three legs of The Score’s tripod.
Unfortunately if you look at the box score you’ll find that the stats add up, but in the end it’s a disappointing loss for a team that had so much potential.
Nick Wells (Robert De Niro) is a professional thief on the verge of retirement. He has a jazz bar and a loving relationship with his girlfriend Diane (Angela Bassett). Wells wants out but is lured into one more job by his upscale feeder and business partner Max (Marlon Brando). Max has a man with the inside track on a very lucrative job, and this tease is too much for Wells to pass up. Max puts Wells in contact with Jackie Teller (Edward Norton), a talented liar with a very uneven temperament. Jackie butts heads with Wells, creating tension that strings itself all the way to the film’s end.
The Score follows a very traditional heist movie plot and relies on the talent of its performers to carry it past the realm of mediocrity. Director Frank Oz and the screenwriters did their best, but the movie never gets into the extra gear it revs up for. Everything about The Score averages out to “mid”.
Let’s start off with the bad.
This is a send off for Marlon Brando, I am here to say that he doesn’t deserve any praise in this final performance. According to reports from The Guardian and consolidation on IMDB, Brando refused to work with Frank Oz when he was on the set and instead thought it better to belittle Oz for his relationship with The Muppet Show puppeteer. Yes, Frank Oz is Miss Piggy.
Brando was a shit ton of trouble in his career. Somehow Francis Ford Coppola made gold out of shit with his part as Colonel Walker in Apocalypse Now (1979). Oz is not Coppola. According to reports it was De Niro who was directing Brando with Oz in his ear via a headset. To make this headache worse, Brando’s part in The Score means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It is a part that could have been done to any other larger than life actor.
Part of the reason Brando was cast in this movie was because he was near the end of his career and this was the first time that actors who both won Oscars for played the same part (Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974)). As a viewer of The Score in 2023, I am here to say that Brando’s salary of three million dollars for two weeks was a gross waste of money.
Robert De Niro has the classic part of the unwilling hero who wants to straighten out but can’t resist the thrill. Nick Wells as a character doesn’t have a ton of depth. The screenplay tries to add in another layer of personality with his relationship with Diane, but the band-aid attempt gets washed off quickly. De Niro is the best when he has the quiet confidence going up against Jack. The two different personalities remind me of relationships where one friend’s silence acts like gasoline to another’s fury. One wants to fight, but the other doesn’t take any bait. Egos are tested, and wisdom wins out.
Movies often get canceled years after they are made. I don’t agree with this mentality, but I am shocked that Edward Norton’s character isn’t among them. Norton’s true ethos is Jack Teller, but his alter ego is Brian, a mentally handicapped man who works at the sight of the crime. That is Jack’s in. That is how he has all of the inside information.
Norton’s performance is perfectly Norton. Perhaps he got his tough-to-work-with personna from Brando on the cast of this movie? That’s a theory. But Norton in The Score plays detestable very well. He is so easy to hate. The attitude he has here reminds me a tad of his rich asshole personna in The Italian Job (2003), which is a far better heist movie than this particular adventure.
The Score doesn’t have any outstanding qualities, but it also doesn’t have any detrimental traits either. Everything about the movie is perfectly fine. It helps that The Score had a budget large enough to get talent to cover up some of the deep valley moments. Brando is bad, De Niro is good, and Norton is exactly what you’d expect. The Score doesn’t move the needle, but you won’t be watching the clock waiting for it to be over.
There are better Robert De Niro led one-off crime adventures, one of which I will be reviewing very soon.
As of August 2023, The Score is streaming on Paramount+.
STANKO RATING: C
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