Grade: B-

Verdict: Could've been so much more, but the stars make it worth checking out.

Details: Starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Angela Bassett and Marlon Brando. Directed by Frank Oz. Rated R for profanity. Two hours, 3 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: When a movie starring Robert De Niro, Eward Norton and Marlon Brando opens and there's no buzz aside from the on-the-set problems between Brando and director Frank Oz, you have to think there's something wrong.

There is.

It's the movie.

“The Score" isn't so much a mess — it's too professional for that — as it is a missed opportunity.

Ostensibly a caper flick that pulls together three of the greatest actors of their respective generations, the film is mostly about how cool it is to be Robert De Niro. Which, of course, it is. In the movie, De Niro plays Nick, the best thief in the world. Nick's a guy who can crack safes that can't be cracked, who can outwit any security guard, any security camera. Plus, he owns a jazz club in Montreal (his legit job) and he gets to sleep with Angela Bassett. Can you get any cooler than that?

Nick wants to retire, partly because he's getting a little old for the heist game but mostly because Bassett wants him to. However, he's lured into one last job by his eccentric partner, Max (Brando). It's a chance to clear a cool $4 million and all Nick has to do is break into the Montreal Customs House and steal a priceless sceptor (something a king holds, as the movie helpfully explains).

Besides, Max already has a guy on the inside. He's a cocky up-and-comer named Jack (Norton) who's faked his way into an assistant janitor's job by pretending to have cerebral palsy (it plays better than it sounds). Because Max is an old pal in a financial fix, Nick agrees. But Max isn't telling him everything and Jack has his own agenda, which includes showing Nick who really is the best thief around.

There must be at least two dozen caper movies better than “The Score.” But this movie isn't about the score; it's about the guys doing the scoring. And that, alas, is where the movie lets you down. The scenes between De Niro and Norton or De Niro and Brando or De Niro and Bassett are tantalizingly good. And frustratingly few — though Norton and De Niro do get to have a number of good rounds together.

Whether it was Brando troubles (he reportedly refused to be in the same room with Oz) or script troubles or who-knows-what troubles, the director spends most of the movie showing us the nuts and bolts of pulling off a high-tech robbery. Think of a how-to manual with some very glamorous instructors. But as the recent “Swordfish” proved, sexy blondes and sexy music and sexy Hugh Jackman still can't make computer hacking sexy. And it almost seems like a punishment to watch people typing, people deciphering blueprints and people pretending to be De Niro hanging from a pole or dangling from a rope when you know there's a trio of heavyweights waiting around for their next scene.

Speaking of heavyweights ... Brando — once one of the most beautiful men on the planet — now looks like the love child of Orson Welles and Truman Capote. With just a touch of Moby Dick when he wears a white suit. He gives one of his whacky, slightly fey performances, but the darn thing is, he can still pull stuff off. His few exchanges with De Niro are wonderful. When Nick reacts to Max's scheme with “Have you lost your mind?” Max replies, “Years ago. Why?”

Norton gives a fine, showy performance. His Jack is wily and assertive while his pose as someone with a physical challenge seems both accurate and non-condescending (though the movie could be getting into murky territory here). Bassett looks gorgeous and has about 10 lines. And there's De Niro, luxuriating in being De Niro, which is always worth watching.

So the movie isn't anywhere near what it could've been (should've been?). Still, it's hard to pass up a picture that has Brando telling De Niro he'll believe that this is his last job “when the pigs eat my brother.”

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution