Creating a film resembles executing a heist. That’s what Steven Soderbergh—director of the Ocean’s series, among other classic heist films—remarked a few years back. You devise a creative strategy, assemble a group of experts, navigate technological obstacles, practice, operate with impeccable timing, and—when done correctly—redistribute some assets. This could pertain to either the narrative or the production of Ocean’s Eleven.
However, in contrast, executing a heist doesn’t closely mirror cinematic portrayals. Surveillance footage, alarm systems, knockout substances, and lasers rarely appear in major criminal activities. In reality, technical barriers seldom pose a significant issue, and high-tech tools are rarely effective solutions. The predominant obstacle is typically a physical barrier, such as a door. Thieves most often collaborate with, deceive, or intimidate an insider. Last year, a heist resulted in the Louvre losing €88 million in antique jewelry, with the most advanced technology employed being an angle grinder.
The low-tech maneuvers at the Louvre align with longstanding conclusions from heist research. In 2014, US nuclear weapons specialists at Sandia National Laboratories diverted their attention to this underworld, producing a 100-page report titled “The Perfect Heist: Recipes from Around the World.” The researchers were concerned someone might attempt to steal a nuclear weapon from the US stockpile, which led them to compile data on 23 significant robberies from 1972 to 2012 into a “Heist Methods and Characteristics Database,” creating a substantial repository of insights on what succeeded. They discovered that thieves invested extensive time and resources into planning and rehearsal—sometimes exceeding 100 attempts. They’d resort to brute force, burrowing through sewers for months (Société Générale bank heist, Nice, France, 1976), or cunning tactics, dressing up as police to deceive guards (Gardner Museum, Boston, 1990). Yet, nobody was employing, for instance, electromagnetic pulse generators to disable the Las Vegas power grid. The most effective robbers accessed the valuable items unnoticed and departed swiftly.
Fast-forwarding to last year reveals a similar scenario. Spanish researchers examining art crimes from 1990 to 2022 discovered that the least technical approaches continue to be the most effective. “High-tech methods aren’t particularly reliable,” shares Erin L. Thompson, an art historian at John Jay College of Justice who investigates art crime. Swift action and rehearsal surpass intricate systems and alarms; even that Louvre theft was fundamentally just a brief smash-and-grab.
A focus on speed doesn’t imply heists lack skill—panache, indeed. As the saying goes, amateurs discuss tactics; professionals examine logistics. Even sans gadgets, heists and heist films usurp an engineer’s perspective. “Heist films undeniably celebrate intensive specialization—‘I’m going to delve deeply into the power grid, into this type of stone and drill, into Chicago’s nocturnal landscape,’” states Anna Kornbluh, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She published a study last October addressing how heist films mirror an Old Hollywood method of collaborative art creation, while series focusing on new schemes, such as those documenting the rise and fall of WeWork or the fraudster Anna Delvey, represent the more individualistic, disruptive-and-expand attitude of the streaming generation.
Her research may clarify why law-abiding citizens often root for those who might procure a crown from the Louvre or steal $100,000 worth of escargot from a farm in Champagne (as occurred just a few weeks later). Heists, according to Kornbluh, represent anti-oligarch praxis. “Everyone seeks guidance on being a competent collective. There’s a common desire for improved logistics,” she elaborates. “We yearn for a better state. We aspire to a better society. We long for a better world.” These values are shared—and as another old adage conveys, where value exists, so too does crime.
