DVD Movie Rating for: The Score

3 out of 5

Movie Plot of: The Score

Nick Wells, a professional criminal, decides to leave the business for good, since he nearly got caught on his last job. His plan is to live in peace with his girl Diane, running his Montreal jazz club NYC. Soon Max, his good friend and financial partner in the illegal affairs, comes along with an offer Nick can't refuse: A historical and priceless French sceptre has been discovered while being smuggled into the country. It is now under massive surveillance in the Montreal Customs House, and soon to be returned to France. Nick has to team up with Max' man inside, the young, talented and aggressive thief Jackie Teller to get the precious item, and suffer no more financial problems ever. Only one question remains: Who will trick whom out of their share?

DVD Production Details of: The Score

Starring: Robert De Niro, Edward Norton

Director: Robert De Niro, Frank Oz

Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby

Studio: Paramount Home Video

DVD Release Date: December 11, 2001
DVD Features:
Commentary by Frank Oz and director of photography Rob Hahn

Theatrical trailer(s)

Behind-the-Scenes Featurette

Additional Footage

"Making The Score"

Widescreen anamorphic format

Cast of the movie: The Score

• Robert De Niro .... Nick Wells
• Edward Norton .... Jack Teller
• Marlon Brando .... Max
• Angela Bassett .... Diane
• Gary Farmer .... Burt
• Paul Soles .... Danny
• Jamie Harrold .... Steven
• Serge Houde .... Laurent
• Jean-René Ouellet .... André
• Martin Drainville .... Jean-Claude
• Claude Despins .... Albert
• Richard Waugh .... Sapperstein
• Mark Camacho .... Eric (Sapperstein's Cousin)
• Marie-Josée D'Amours .... Woman in Study

Photo Gallery of the movie: The Score

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size, high resolution photographs

Reviews of the movie: The Score

Robert De Niro plays a weary thief tempted by wily old associate Marlon Brando into, yes, one last job, a plan to rob a priceless scepter from Montreal's Customs House. Director Frank Oz's heist thriller partners De Niro with hotshot upstart Edward Norton, and you'd have to be determinedly grumpy not to get half a kick out of Brando, DeNiro, and Norton--more than holding his own--coolly bouncing off one another in a Method paradise. Brando may be enormous and breathing heavily with every move, but his technique is as agile as it ever was; he still seems spontaneously clever. Oz doesn't have the most crackling visual style in the world, as the film is far too smooth for tension, and keeps tapping Howard Shore's music score to do most of the work in that department; the divine Angela Bassett is once again totally wasted in a 10-minute throwaway role as De Niro's girlfriend. The Score isn't anything new, and there isn't a single surprise, but if you're into this sort of thing you do respond to its polished familiarity

Spoilers herein.

The director is a nothing; the story at the Hardy Boys level. The only reason for this to exist is to get some leading method actors of three generations together.

Brando reinvented film acting, but was already burned out by ‘62. The Godfather deal was a walk, not an adventure for him. And since then, an empty husk. It is sad to watch him here.

De Niro is a disciple only, not an innovator. He has successfully filled a narrative space a few times, but in the relatively simple case of playing a tough or disturbed guy. He's long over the hill too. Not a matter of burnout in his case, but laziness. De Niro still breaths fire, has good rhythm, but with no magic.

Norton is not only of a new generation agewise, but a practitioner of a new method, one which fills the narrative space with irony, not the direct perspective of the other two. More sustainable because he can reflect us into the space. De Niro depends on putting himself in that space, and he is just not an interesting enough man to fill the dozens and dozens of roles he passes through.

`Fight Club' understood this new method, literally building it into the narrative. The writer and director of this mess have no clue. Brando discovered this on showing up and refused to participate. Both he and De Niro know what is going on and gracefully give Norton leeway.

One sign of a good actor is what he does when the director or writer is so weak. A good one will fill the spaces that the director cannot see with presence that we can. (The best recent example of this in my experience was Gwyneth Paltrow (!) in `Duets,' directed by her Dad.)