Museum Heists in Movies

Recently, as I was flipping through the TV channels, I came across the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Now I love Pierce Brosnan just as much as the next girl with an over-enthusiasm for Celtic actors and I love it even more when major scenes in a film take place in a museum. Even so, I have to admit that the first ten minutes of the movie, which is the big art heist scene, just made me laugh at the improbability of the whole situation. The security depicted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art consists of the kinds of high-tech gadgets, heavy security gates, and taser-wielding guards that only Hollywood could dream up. Let me talk a little about each one.

One of the first things Mr. Crown's decoy thieves do is disable the electronic bolts that hold the paintings to the walls. I can think of no museum that would use a system like this. For one thing, such bolts would have to be set to one specific point on the wall, which is very inflexible. Museums need to be able to rotate artworks of various dimensions, which makes the point on the wall where they are hung different each time. Most museums just attach their paintings to the walls with security screws, which may not be as fancy as electric locks, but they certainly make it easier to rearrange the elevation of the artworks. Next, the thieves disable the air-conditioning in the targeted rooms so the thermal cameras would not be able to detect their body heat. Thermal cameras? Really? No museum would utilize thermal cameras when regular cameras will do. Then there is the heavy gate, which they apparently borrowed from the creators of Jurassic Park, that drops to prevent thieves from leaving the galleries. Now it may have been able to trap a velociraptor, but Mr. Crown was able to escape with the aid of his titanium-lined briefcase. Sorry folks, no gates. Then there was my favorite aspect of the movie-imagined museum security, and that was the liberal use of tasers by the security guards. I have been a security guard for quite some time now and no one has issued me a taser. In fact, I believe only officers of the law are permitted to taze perpetrators. Though I have to admit, the idea does have a certain appeal.

Now I realize that this is a movie and movies are rarely rooted in reality. Films are meant to be fun and over-the-top because that is what entertains. Even though I am completely aware of this, inaccurate events in a motion picture do tend to get me ranting, and I know I'm not the only one. I remember an evening when I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with two of my classmates, and all of us started shrieking when Harrison Ford began wiping off the surface of a centuries-old tablet with champagne. Okay folks, we all do it. So while I'm on a roll, I thought of some more movies to talk about.

Another famous art heist film that comes to mind is the 1999 Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. One of the big scenes is set in a castle that is actually utilized like a museum in its display, but not so much in its security. It is here we find one of Hollywood's most shamelessly over-used security measures: the web of laser beams. It amazes me that these complex and high-tech security systems are somehow always traversable so long as a women is able to do some yoga and lift her derriere high up off the ground. Of course, the only other way to cross a laser field would be to dance through using capoeira skills like Vincent Cassel in Ocean's Twelve. There are no laser beams, but a lot of museums do have motion detectors. A detector that monitors the movement throughout an entire space makes much more sense then a series of thin beams with huge gaps for thieves to boogie through. And then there are the pressure switches, which require the thief to remove the item quickly and hold down the button so an alarm doesn't go off and to prevent the large round stone from rolling down and crushing them. Sorry folks, no pressure switches.

The last film I am going to talk about is the ever-so-slightly more realistic art theft comedy, The Maiden Heist from 2009. The realism comes from a complete lack of high-tech and fancy gadgets. In this film there are three security guards who cannot bare to be separated from their favorite artworks, which the museum is planning to sell to another institution in Denmark. In order to keep them in the country, they plan a complex and covert inside-job heist in order to take possession of two paintings and a sculpture. Their methods are pretty clever and their blunders comical, right down to a nude William H. Macy stuck in the back of an art courier's van. But the involvement of security guards, as far as actually handling and moving the art, is completely unlikely. Security just stands and watches as preparators and professional art movers handle the artworks and the crates, so the characters would not have had the opportunities they did in the film to steal the artworks.

From these films, it is apparent there are two popular themes in Hollywood art heist movies. One is the use of flashy security systems that guide the action in more entertaining directions. These heists require lots of skill, high-tech equipment, and planning on the part of the thieves. The other popular concept in art theft is the idea of the "inside job," and that the only way anyone could take an artwork is to have someone working from within the institution. As far as the reality goes, both these concepts are false. The vast majority of successful museum thefts have been smash-and-grab affairs with a small number of non-museum related people involved. Usually, thefts are committed during daylight hours, and even when the museum is open. Thieves will use force and the element of surprise to grab and go. Since artworks are usually screwed to the walls, robbers are not hesitant to damage a piece by cutting it out of its frame. In the instances where objects that are not paintings, cases can be smashed open, as they were in the Iraqi Museum, or some items torn out of their displays, such as the case with the white rhinoceros horn in France. You can read about some of the more famous thefts on the FBI Art Theft page here.

The fact of the matter is real museum thefts aren't that entertaining. They require no tight black outfits or thermal sensors. They usually just entail speed and brute force, and they happen too quickly for drawn-out shots of impressive dances through laser fields. Perhaps that is my real problem with Hollywood art heist films; they make something hasty and loutish seem thrilling and cunning.

Can you think of any other movies with complex and high-tech heist scenes? What do you think of the depiction of museums in film?