De Niro, Brando, Norton, Bassett — This Heist Thriller Is Worth Watching Just for Its Quartet of Acting Legends Alone -

The success of any good heist movie, much like any real heist, depends largely on who’s in the team and how well they work together. It’s not enough to get enough individual talent into one place; they need to have chemistry together and complement each other’s skill sets. Many great heist films rely on the collective charisma of their actors to carry fairly predictable material, and The Score is no exception, boasting a triple threat of top-tier talent that transcended generations. It should be a fever dream to picture a film starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, and Marlon Brando, let alone that they share multiple scenes together. But that film exists, and they do share scenes, and they triple-handedly make The Score a job worth taking.

What Is ‘The Score’ About?

Jack (Norton) and Nick (De Niro) cracking a code on a computer in The Score — Image via Paramount Pictures

Nick (De Niro) is looking to leave his life of professional thievery behind, especially since his potential bride-to-be, Diane (Angela Bassett), won’t stick with him unless he does. He’d rather be an anonymous jazz club owner, but he can’t resist the last job presented to him by his middleman, Max (Brando), who tells him of an artifact being stored in a customs house. If stolen and sold, it would net Nick $6 million, and he agrees to do the job with the help of the thief who told Max about the artifact, Jack (Norton). Nick is a seasoned veteran who does everything in moderation and with maximum consideration, while Jack is young and hungry, eager to make a name for himself, and none too eager to take a backseat to Nick’s preferred methods. This stark difference in personality and philosophy inevitably leads to conflict that takes what should be a simple job and ratchets up the tension in a crime thriller that finds the most excitement in the verbal sparring between its three leads as opposed to its standard heist mechanics.

De Niro and Norton Have a Fiery Dynamic

While Edward Norton didn’t go on to have a career nearly as illustrious as Robert De Niro’s, the two hold similar weight in their respective generations in terms of how their dedication to the craft is discussed among fellow actors. Seeing them butt heads has a subtext of De Niro passing the torch down to Norton in terms of carrying on the legacy of great American screen acting, just as De Niro arguably took the torch from Marlon Brando decades earlier when De Niro played a younger Vito Corleone. The Score came out when Norton had fully arrived as an important star after his American History X Oscar nomination, while De Niro had graduated to a more relaxed phase of his career with films like Meet the Parents, and that difference is reflected in the characters’ dynamic.

Everything about Nick is technically proficient, and he keeps his cards close to his chest, while Jack leans into his arrogant velocity and presumption of intelligence. Plus, De Niro’s role can be read as a slick riff on his prior roles in films like Brazil and Ronin, and Norton has fun pretending to be a more meek and friendly person as part of the con job, which recalls his first Oscar nomination for Primal Fear. The tug-of-war between De Niro’s rumpled resolve and Norton’s abrasive cockiness spices up many scenes that are otherwise obligatory exposition, and that elevation extends to De Niro’s scenes with Brando.

De Niro and Brando’s Uneasy Chemistry Actually Works

Marlon Brando isn’t in The Score nearly as much as Norton; it’s really more of an extended cameo, which might be a good thing, since he was allegedly an absolute terror on set. This was the last film of Brando’s monolithic career where he appeared onscreen, going out in a far more lighthearted and baroque manner than such a distinction would imply. In a similar vein to De Niro and Norton, Brando’s role is one that evokes prior work of his, a combination of the statuesque mystique of Colonel Kurtz and the impish regality of Dr. Moreau, the two extremes of Brando’s range in one package. Max and Nick are supposed to be old colleagues who have worked together for years, but the stark contrast in the two actors’ performances creates an odd see-saw where they’re never truly comfortable with each other, despite their history.

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Stealing has never been so engaging.

Brando is clearly not taking many of his lines seriously, throwing them out like he’s having a fun lark, an energy that De Niro never matches. Rather than show too much deference to Brando, De Niro never cowers from his antics and notorious improvisations that seem wildly out of pocket, being the immovable object standing firm against Brando’s unstoppable force. Max and Nick’s alliance might be uneasy, but the interplay between De Niro and Brando winds up making for unexpectedly cozy entertainment. Edward Norton only gets to share two scenes with both of them, but when they’re finally all on-screen together, The Score crackles with an electricity that shouldn’t be missed by acting nerds.