Robert Pattinson’s new movie, Heist, is the story of a group of wealthy socialites and their elaborate heists, and how a humble security guard turned crimefighter stopped them all for good.
The film, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, is based on True Crime Weekly, a weekly publication devoted to true crime stories. The Hollywood Reporter called the film “a gonzo crime drama” that is “part heist movie, part buddy cop show, part superhero origin story.”
If you want to know more about the making of Heist, you’ll have to read our in-depth story. But before you do, here’s a brief primer on the most interesting characters and what happened to them.
The Players
This story revolves around four unique individuals, who we’ll call The Players. All four of them have colorful pasts, questionable habits, and even questionable abilities. But it’s their interplay that makes this story so interesting to follow.
The Players consist of a spoiled, narcissistic heiress (played by American Crime Story’s Uma Thurman), a crafty, charming con artist (played by Ethan Hawke), a former NFL player (played by Richard Gambrone), and a musclebound drug dealer (played by Robert Pattinson). In the world of The Players, every con is a ‘cool’ con, and every heist is a ‘smart’ heist. The more you learn about them, the more you’ll want to know.
The Story So Far
So let’s start from the beginning. It’s 2005, and socialite and heiress Samantha Fox (Uma Thurman) is throwing a ‘power dinner party’ at the Beverly Hills Hotel to celebrate the end of her divorce. It’s a veritable who’s who of Hollywood, and among the attendees are Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Marion Cotillard. And it’s only the beginning of a gorgeous night. After the dinner party, the women go their separate ways, but not before engaging in a bit of mischief.
Samantha then goes on to have an affair with Cotillard’s husband, Guillaume. The affair ends when Cotillard divorces Guillaume and, at the same time, marries Samantha’s ex-husband, Nick.
Samantha becomes an unwitting accomplice in Nick’s plan to con her own friends out of money. Nick forces his wife to file for divorce and, in the process, exposes Samantha’s affair with Cotillard. After the scandalous and very public affair, Cotillard spirals downward, going from socialite to social alien, until she eventually takes her own life. Meanwhile, Nick is sent to prison for fraud. Thanks to his accomplice, Samantha, who eventually turns on him and claims he was the one who masterminded the whole operation. She then becomes an eligible widow and marries Richard Gambrone (The Wedding Singer), who is coincidentally also an inmate of San Quentin prison. They live happily ever after.
The Big Donny And Mariella Heist
Two years later, in 2007, Richard and Samantha are living a quiet life in Southern California. But that all changes when an old friend of Samantha’s named Donny (played by Scoot McNairy) calls and asks for her help. Donny tells Samantha that his partner, Mariella (played by Sharon Stone), has been kidnapped. The two men were having an affair, and when she found out, Mariella threatened to expose the relationship, as well as Donny’s and Samantha’s connection to drug lord Gregor Reese (played by Robert Pattinson). So now Donny and Samantha have a secret to keep. They decide to rob Gregor Reese and his henchmen during the annual Met Gala ball. Donny and Samantha call their crew ‘The Heist’, and from the outset, they want to keep the entire heist a secret from Richard and Samantha. So to avoid suspicion, they hide their weapons and disguises, and carry out the heist without their celebrity status becoming evident.
But Gregor Reese is no ordinary criminal. He’s an expert at spotting undercover cops and informants. So when Samantha and Donny successfully pull off the heist, Gregor turns them into his personal enforcers, assigning them tasks that only a cop could complete. And that’s what puts Richard Gambrone on the map as a security guard. He’s not exactly a cop, but he is an expert at recognizing patterns and clues. So without directly being told to do so, Richard starts hunting for criminals. And that’s how he ends up catching the attention of the Feds and implicating Samantha and Donny in a plot to frame an innocent man for a bank robbery.
Samantha and Donny are forced to go on the run and, over the course of the next few years, they conspire to keep their lifestyle while also trying to clear Richard’s name. But the strain of the double life takes its toll on them, and Donny eventually dies of a heart attack. That was the end of the line for Samantha. She could have gone on living a quiet life, but she decided to make one last stand against injustice. She exposes Richard’s involvement in the bank robbery and clears his name.
Mr. Big Shot
A few years pass, and Samantha and Richard are living a comfortable life in California. Richard is running a security firm and Samantha is writing a novel, and in the meantime, they have a son, Milo (played by Arlo White). Life is sweet, and they’re enjoying their new, ‘normal’ life. But that all changes when Richard is informed that an old rival, Mr. Bentley (played by William Forsythe), has died and left him his vast fortune. But it’s not just any fortune. It’s an estimated 100 million dollars. And Mr. Big Shot is coming to collect.
Richard decides to try and fight back, but he needs help. So he calls his old friend, Nick (played by Powers Boothe), who has just been released from prison. Together, the two men plot to steal the money back. Not only that, but they want to use the money to buy an entire mountain of cocaine, which Mr. Big Shot is planning to ship to Mexico. So the three of them go into business, smuggling cocaine into Mexico and the rest of the world. Just like that, in the span of a few hours, Richard’s life changes forever.
The next few years are a blur of crime and punishment. Richard is arrested numerous times, and each time he’s sent to jail, he calls upon Nick and Samantha to help him get out of jail. But even as the years pass and Nick and Samantha grow old together, Richard is still searching for Mr. Big Shot. He vows to bring him to justice. In 2018, six years after the initial heist, Richard is arrested yet again and this time, he’s going to be brought to court and charged with grand larceny. He is still waiting for Mr. Big Shot to show up, so he can hand him over to the authorities. But Mr. Big Shot has other plans. He shows up to the court with an army of lawyers and bail is set at 10 million dollars. Richard has nowhere to go but back to jail. He knows that Mr. Big Shot will come back for him. And he has good reason to believe that this time he’ll bring friends. And that’s when he calls upon Samantha, who has gone on the lam but is always one step ahead of the law. She agrees to return and help him. They hatch a plan, in which Samantha will pose as a lawyer and Richard will be her ‘client’, which will give the two of them the perfect alibi.