The Art of the Steal

Year: 2013

Actors: Katheryn Winnick, Kurt Russell, Chris Diamantopoulos, Jay Baruchel

Duration: 90 min

It begins with a soliloquy by Crunch Calhoun (Kurt Russell) as he begins his seven-year prison sentence, courtesy of his brother, Nicky Calhoun (Matt Dillon). A flashback reveals the heist involving the two men that had gone wrong, resulting in Nicky's capture and subsequent betrayal of Crunch. The heist was that a gangster had stolen a painting & wanted to get it authenticated. Nicky & Church bribed a professor who was going to authenticate the painting & got him to do a 15 minute density scan. In this time, Chruch took the painting out from under the giant machine, took it to a forger, replaced the original with the forgery & puts the forgery back into the density scanner. But, while escaping Nicky triggers the alarms & gets caught by the police. The police offer him a 20 yr sentence or offer to let him walk if he hands over the painting & a fall guy. Nicky implicates Church, who ends up in jail.Once released, Crunch works as a motorcycle stunt performer/daredevil alongside girlfriend Lola (Katheryn Winnick) and an apprentice, Francie (Jay Baruchel). Meanwhile, Nicky steals a painting by Georges Seurat with the help of a partner whom he later double crosses. The partner seeks out and threatens Crunch to get information on Nicky's whereabouts. Shortly afterwards, Crunch informs an old colleague of his, 'Uncle' Paddy, that he's ready to work again. At Paddy's place, he and Francie run into Nicky. Chruch & Nicky have a fight, but agree to work together with Paddy.'Uncle' Paddy explains that a priceless historical book needs to be stolen from a Customs warehouse in Canada and taken to the buyer's middle man in Detroit. The payout is over a million dollars so they agree. Crunch insists on recruiting an old partner, Guy De Cornet (Chris Diamantopoulos), for his skills and talent in forgery. Cornet creates an exact replica of the book which Crunch takes through the Canadian border station hidden inside a peculiar piece of art. An identity check prompts the police to impound his art, as planned, in the same facility where the historical book is being held. Meanwhile, Guy De Cornet passes as an art authentication expert and enters the facility, replacing the real book with the forgery and hiding the real book within Crunch's art piece. After Canadian border patrol clears Crunch's name, he goes to the facility and reclaims his art piece.The team is in the process of taking the book to the buyer when Nicky persuades Crunch to keep the book and forge multiple duplicates to sell to multiple buyers at the same time, netting them several times the original payout. They run into a snag when Cornet reveals that in order for him to create forgeries that would pass such tests as carbon dating and professional scrutiny, they would need 750,000 dollars. Each person names an amount they could chip in and after some persuasion, Crunch agrees to fund the remaining amount. They agree not to contact one another until the required month has passed to conduct the transaction.Sometime during this month, Nicky secretly plots to create his own cheaper forgeries and beat his team at selling them to the same buyers. Nicky calls the original buyer and informs him that there will be a delay, but the buyer claims to know nothing about the deal. A frantic Nicky calls all people and organizations involved in the heist, learning to his dismay that they either could not be reached or had no knowledge of the book.Meanwhile, Crunch explains to his apprentice Francie how the historical book was a fabricated ploy and its true purpose was to steal the Georges Seurat painting from Nicky and make a great deal of money using Nicky's idea of multiple forgeries. Flashbacks reveal Francie was the only who did not know of this plan. Meanwhile Interpol receive an anonymous tip to the whereabouts of Nicky and the painting he stole from the partner he double crossed earlier.The ending reveals the last player in Crunch's plan, an old reformed colleague of his by the name of Samual Winters who had been paired with the Interpol agent who had been watching them at the start of the plan. Crunch stole the real Seurat painting from Nicky & got Guy to make 10 forgeries of it. He put one forgery in Nicky's suitcase & when Nicky is caught with it, he gets Samual to testify that it is the real Seurat. Meanwhile Paddy has lined up 10 buyers for the Seurat fakes, which allows Crunch & gang to clear 20 MM. Crunch gives the real Seurat to Samual as a gift.

Genre: Action   Comedy   Crime   Thriller