-surprisingly enjoyable movie <br /><br />-A group of thieves lead by Mark Wahlberg rob a gold safe in Italy and thankfully for them the heist is successful and they get away with it without any big problems. Before the group can celebrate however Steve played by Ed Norton decides he want the gold all for himself and pulls a Cout De' Ta on the group and shoots one of the members. He and his accomplices leave thinking that the group is dead but luckily the group is not dead. A year later we get back into the story where the group has tracked down Norton and decide to steal the gold back and spend the rest of the movie coming up with plans to steal back their gold and settle a score.<br /><br />-This was a surprise for me, it had all the makings to be a typical forgettable summer movie but it was actually memorable and really fun to watch. What I like is how smart and well thought out the plans in the movie are, and how the movie feels realistic. Watching the trailer would make you think it was some mindless action movie but in fact there are only two action scenes in the movie and they are all really well done. The latter action scene is a very long 20 min. scene that has one of the best car chases ever done. I like how real the chase is and how everything is done old school style without the aid of CGI. Me personally I enjoyed this car chase more than the CGI filled chase in "Matrix 2". I remember watching music videos by director F. Gary Gray and always noticed how well made they were and thought he'd make a great filmmaker, turns out I was right as always and he proves it here. Can't wait to see what he does with the sequel. <br /><br />-The actors do a decent job too with Seth Green being my favorite of the group. The other thing I loved was the excellent score by John Powell, ever since I heard his score for "Robots" this year I've been a fan of him and paying close attention to his music and the man is really good. He does a great job of avoiding all the typical summer action movie musical cliché's and provides a very well done score. I haven't seen the original that this is based on so I can't really say how well it stacks up to that one.<br /><br />-So yeah this is a great popcorn movie that actually has a brain unlike most of the summer movie crap that comes out. Has great characters, is funny as hell and has a amazing score by John Powell. If you love heist movies then you'll love this one <br /><br />-you know if I was in the group they'd call me handsome mike