Angela Bassett, Edward Norton, Robert DeNiro, Paul Soles, and Marlon Brando, directed by Frank "Yoda" Oz
The first reaction I had before anything was, wow, look at this cast. We have arguably the best actor ever, Marlon Brando, who I thought really wasn't into making movies anymore, in a supporting role!? I have no idea why Marlon Brando would come back after all these years just to play second fiddle to Norton and De Niro. Brando's fine in his part, but it's a small part, and most of the time I was just like, "Marlon Brando?! What's he doing there." We have Angela Bassett as a woman who has as much appeal among African-Americans as Denzel Washington for her defining roles in films such as "Waiting to Exhale." She's paired up with Robert De Niro here, which produces a big question mark in me as well, especially since the two really have zero chemistry on screen.
At the center of the story, Nick (De Niro), are Jack (Norton), are two people who don't really like each other that much but it's a two-person job and they're both good at what they do, so they'll split it three ways (Marlon Brando gets a share, cause he's Marlon Brando). Nick lives in Montreal and this is a kind of an oxymoron, is a nightclub owner in his day job. He's very careful about what he does, he only steals things if there's little risk and he doesn't rob in Montreal cause he lives there, and either he just feels civic pride or he thinks it's too risky, I'm not sure which. As Nick tells Jack once, he's survived so long because he's just careful.
On the other hand, Jack is just a lot more enthusiastic in general, about stealing this jewel, maybe cause he doesn't have a day job to look foward to, and wants to take risks all over the place. In order to tap into the security network, he works at the site under the cover of a retarded cleaning assistant, Danny. Personally, I think Danny's coworkers talked down to him too much, even taking into account his mental state, so I enjoyed watching Jack screw his janitor superior over in one scene.
De Niro and Norton really play their characters to type here. Jack is like Norton who has played the edgey bad guy in a few movies, and is pretty overconfident in himself. Nick is a guy like De Niro who has been in a million critically acclaimed movies as a tough guy, so he doesn't make a big deal out of this anymore. Of course, De Niro is a better actor then Norton, at least in my opinion, and as a parrallel in the movie, he can put half the effort and do his job as well as Nick.
From Nick's point of view, there's just not a lot of drama in this job, for him, it's pretty routine and easy, and Jack, as I said before makes a big deal out of this job. I think the movie intended for me to be as excited about the movie and engaged in the plot as Jack was about the jewel heist, but I think I felt a little more like Nick. The movie's plot didn't get me that worked up, I was never really that glued to my seat by what would happen next, even if it had a few cool plot turns. Instead, I thought it was a mildly pleasant outing with some cool special effects.