The Best Laid Plans

The heista carefully organized robbery of a financial institution or other lucrative businesshas been a persistent and popular mainstay of the crime film. The Best Laid Plans: Interrogating the Heist Film asks the question: why has the heist film proved so appealing to audiences over many years and in diverse cultural contexts? The twelve essays in this volume, edited by Jim Leach and Jeannette Sloniowski, explore the significance of the heist film in different national cinemas, as well as its aesthetic principles and ideological issues such as representation of gender, race, and class. The essays are organized in three parts dealing with the heist film's international presence, the subgenre's social and cultural implications, and some theoretical ways of approaching it. For example, contributor Gaylyn Studlar surveys heist films in light of feminist theories that illuminate stereotypical characterizations of both men and women in the heist; and Hamilton Carroll compares James Marshs documentary Man on a Wirewhich draws on heist conventions to depict Philippe Petits unauthorized tightrope walk in 1974 between the two towers of the World Trade Centerto Spike Lees New Yorkset heist film Inside Man. The Best Laid Plans includes an accessible group of essays that will meet the needs of students and scholars in film and media studies by offering new insights into an important and neglected area in genre criticism.