As Donald Trump deals with the vicissitudes of putting together his White House staff — some candidates jockeying for position, others declining — cinephiles’ film-obsessed brains may veer toward one of the classic movie conventions: the putting-together-a-team-of-experts film.
Those movies, many of them involving heists, are always fun because they offer opportunities for sharply defined characters and juicy supporting performances, not unlike what you might find at a Cabinet meeting in the White House (Doris Kearns Goodwin even called her book about Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet “Team of Rivals”). Here are a few team-of-experts movies to consider:
“Rififi” (1954) — The French thriller is so entertaining because it’s laser-focused on just two things: putting together the team (an explosives expert, a getaway driver, etc.) and then executing a plan to swipe some priceless jewels, minute by tense minute.
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) — You could argue that the team is already assembled when Sam Peckinpah’s violent, beautifully edited masterpiece commences. But Peckinpah has a few tricks up his sleeve in the Western about a bunch of aging desperadoes who were sort of an early “Suicide Squad.”
“Mission: Impossible” (1994) — Tom Cruise brings together a tech head (Ving Rhames), a pilot (Jean Reno), a strategist (Vanessa Redgrave) and others in an exhilarating Brian De Palma thriller that is way better than you probably remember it.
“Chicken Run” (2000) — An animated spoof of “The Great Escape,” another team-of-experts classic, the sweet and witty “Chicken Run” is about a rascally rooster (voiced by Mel Gibson) who agrees to train a ragtag bunch of chickens so they can break out of a farm whose owners plan to bake them into pot pies.
“Ghostbusters” (2016) — The remake isn’t perfect, but it’s both frequently hilarious and a rare movie in which “the team” is made up of women, including driver Lesley Jones and computer wonk Kate McKinnon. Those two are the best thing about the action comedy, which also stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. (We’ll get another female-centric “team” movie next year, with a Sandra Bullock/Cate Blanchett/Anne Hathaway/Mindy Kaling “Ocean’s 11” remake.)
