If there’s one thing we’ve all had during this pandemic, it’s been too much time to think. I’m sure a lot of people have taken time to reflect, grow, and find out what is important in their lives, but I’ve used my prodigious brainpower to come to a different conclusion. Heist movies fucking rule. Whether it’s the overwhelming charm of Ocean’s 11, sneaky genre-bending super heists like Antman, or the sacrosanct icon that is Heat, they’re all entertaining yet formulaic and are beyond cool. I don’t know a single guy that hasn’t wondered not just whether or not they’d be able to pull off “the perfect job”, but also who they would be in this situation. One fine Sunday morning during chest/triceps day at the gym I realized, I should build the perfect crew for one last job.

Now every crew has certain archetypes that are always filled in some way shape or form: the leader, the brains, the charmer, the hacker/GIC (guy in chair), the muscle, the “one last job” guy, the fixer, and the rookie. Sometimes they can be merged into the same person, Sizemore was the one last job guy and the muscle when “the action was the juice” for him in Heat for example, but they always exist. In making my crew I decided to come up with a few arbitrary rules:

1. No characters from an actual heist movie. Let’s get creative and see what other people have to offer.
2. No superheroes. That just makes things too easy. Dr. Manhattan as the brains who can see every moment in time and exist in all of them simultaneously just doesn’t seem fun.
3. No repeat actors. While speaking with my brain twin of a sister, we both thought of separate Matt Damon characters who’d be perfect, but repetition ruins the fun here. 

So get your kevlar and fake ID badges ready, there’s a macguffin for us to get, and we have just one last time to get it.

The Leader/Brains: Doc Brown (Back to the Future)

I accidentally just decided this heist is going to be all about getting enough uranium to get the Delorean to be able to go back in time. This is probably going to be a lot safer, and less controversial, than buying from Libyan terrorists (which is a literal plot point from Back to the Future…fucking wild right?). Doc Brown has a lot to offer as a leader when you dive into it. He’s a genius who made time traveling possible. He’s charismatic enough to be a 60-year-old dude who befriends someone who’s seemingly a guitar god and popular guy in high school (sidenote Marty McFly is weird). Brown can talk people into doing stuff for him, IE Marty and Einstein, he always sees the big picture, he can think on his feet, and let’s be real…there’s a good chance he can make bombs out of anything. He’d easily be able to find each individual’s strengths and weaknesses and maximize the rest of the crew with all 1.21 Gigawatts of his brainpower. 

The Charmer: Phil (The Hangover)

If Doc Brown is our Clooney, and in my world he most definitely is, then this character must be our Pitt. The charmer needs to be a pied piper type of character who can convince anyone of just about anything. Now I had three simultaneous thoughts for this one initially. My very first thought was Lisa Bonet as Marie DeSalle from High Fidelity. I’ve started watching that movie a dozen times, and once I see her I forget everything and am just transported onto another plane of existence by her. Next, I thought of Hitch, whose charm is so great that he’s able to parcel it out to Kevin James types and help them get girls, he’d clearly help the crew as a whole. Then Ferris Buehler popped into my brain. He’s the Pied Piper incarnate, but he also may just be a figment of Cameron’s imagination so we have to pass on that. After way too much thought, I’m going with Phil from The Hangover. Throughout all three movies, Phil is able to convince his friends to get into various shenanigans they want no part of while keeping everyone calm under vast amounts of stress. Phil looks phenomenal in a suit, which is key in all charming and heisty situations, and he’s willing to impersonate a cop which could come in handy. He gets bonus points for being a teacher, even though he is way too relatably over his job, and is apt to be the ideal complement to Doc Brown.

The Muscle: Chong Li (Bloodsport)

This one is self-explanatory. The perfect enforcer is much like Teddy Roosevelt, he speaks softly and carries a big stick. The muscle must be menacing by appearance, and deadly by action. Because of the fact that the terminator is just a little too close to being a superhero to me, I’m going with Bolo Yeung as Chong Li. By my memory/half-assed googling, Chong Li has 3 lines of dialog in the entirety of Bloodsport. That’s correct ladies and gentlemen, he has more kills than sentences spoken in this movie. I may be wrong, but I think he invented the kung fu movie staple of getting hit in the face and tasting his own blood before destroying his opponent. If there’s a chance that there’s a rat in the crew, Chong Li will break his skull with his fist. If there’s a guard who’s about to alert the authorities, Chong Li will put him into an impenetrable sleeper hold. Let’s be honest with each other, we both know you’re not going to mess with this guy.

The Fixer: Mark Watney (The Martian)

Now in most movies, even the perfect heist has issues. Something is bound to go wrong here, and it takes someone to think on their toes to minimize losses and fix the problem. It takes a special person to do this while keeping everyone moving forward to their initial goal. No one personifies this better than Mark Watney from The Martian. Watney is a botanist who gets stranded on Mars and finds a way to communicate with Earth and eat potatoes grown in Martian soil fertilized by human feces for over 500 days. If there is a better outcome in a worst-case scenario that was solved by just one man than that one I’m all ears. Watney is also a great foil character for this crew as he’s a brilliant scientist who could argue with Doc Brown and is a bit of a motor mouth who’d be great opposite Chong Li. A problem-solver who’s unflappable under pressure is perfect for a heist, and Mark Watney is the apotheosis of this idea.

The Hacker/GIC: Dennis Nedry (Jurassic Park)

This is probably a looked over part of a great crew but, as with all things in life, communication is key. Now, this role is personified to a Mt. Rushmore-like level by Theo in Die Hard. He hacks into the security system of the building, tells his fellow thieves when and where the cops are coming from, and narrates the whole thing. Sadly, Die Hard is too close of a heist movie to use Theo. My second choice is DJ from The Warriors, just because it’d be great to hear her voice refer to the crew as boppers but that really doesn’t make too much sense logistically. Basically, this came down to two legitimate choices: Dennis Nedry, which upon reading it just seems like they did a lazy job rearranging Nerdy for his name, or Angelina Jolie’s character from Hackers. I went with Nedry for a few reasons: he shut down the entire security system on a billionaire’s island, he’s money motivated which is great for a heist, and he values proper decorum as seen above. Also, I’m not sure what Jolie’s character was named in Hackers, nor am I entirely sure that she was a hacker. She did have a pixie cut which this crew is clearly lacking, but I went with Mr. Dilophosaurus dinner instead.

The Rookie: Cady Heron (Mean Girls)

The rookie needs to be a mixture of wide-eyed optimism and situational fluidity that is easy to underestimate. The two best heist examples of this are either Matt Damon in the Ocean’s trilogy or Elliot Page as Ariadne in Inception. Initially, I wanted to go with Nate Fillion from his TV show the rookie because it’d be so on the nose and also Nathan Fillion rules, but this would cause two problems: he’s a TV character and a cop. Cops aren’t good robbers, in fact, they’re often the opposite. Cady Heron checks a bunch of boxes, but her fluidity in all social situations and high IQ make her perfect for this job. Random trivia knowledge and math skills never hurt, plus she could easily distract a large crowd by breaking into “Jingle Bell Rock” if this is a Christmas-timed caper. She has a penchant for skullduggery already with the way she infiltrated and broke up the most popular clique at North Shore High, plus she tricked Regina George into getting fat. A jack-of-all-trades crew member like Cady could go a long way.

The One Last Job/Getaway Driver: Imperator Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road)

The “one last job” character trope almost always ends in some type of Retirony where they end up dying. Sizemore in Heat is a prime example here, but we clearly should remember Skowie as McBain’s partner who died in pursuit of Mendoza just two days short of retirement. Now every crew needs someone who does it their own way and doesn’t mind ruffling feathers from time to time. Furiosa does this and then some. She’s willing to beat up the titular character. She’s an absolute badass. She is crafty enough to trick people into doing what she wants, and after her last job of freeing The Five Wives from Immortan Joe and giving the Citadel back to the people, she probably had a content life. Most people forget that contentment doesn’t equal happiness. There’s no way that someone who drives a war rig, hides guns everywhere, and didn’t let losing an arm stop her from killing people, lives in retirement bliss without getting the itch to go out for their swan song. Doc Brown can scratch that itch with this high-stakes heist.

So we have the perfect heist crew assembled. What’s great about this is that everyone in the crew has the ability to keep someone in check, but there’s no one who is overtly abrasive enough to cause inner group conflict. From wisecracks to skull cracks, they can get just about anything done to pull off, if you’re doubting me just think about it…they already stole our hearts.