Why do big-screen criminals waste their time concocting elaborate plans for robberies, when they know that failure is just around the next corner?

In David Mamet's intricate thriller, Heist, the reason becomes clear - it is so that they can entertain and thrill us trying to get out of a mess of their own making.

During a supposedly routine jewellery store robbery, veteran thief Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) lets his guard slip and exposes his identity to the store's CCTV system.

Desperate to abandon his life of crime, Joe visits sleazy crime boss Bergman (Danny DeVito) to collect the spoils of his labours.

However, Bergman refuses to pay up, and blackmails Joe into one last sting - the hijack of a planeload of gold bullion.

And, just to make sure the plan goes ahead, Bergman demands that his psychotic nephew (yes, there always has to be a rabid relative involved) Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell) is part of the team.

Powerless to refuse, Joe assembles his usual posse of thieves, including his wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon), Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo) and Don Pincus (Ricky Jay).

The plan goes into action without a hitch, until the team members begin double-crossing one another in an attempt to secure a larger share of the loot.

Thankfully, Heist is not as self-consciously tricky as some of Mamet's recent features, and the film builds a head of dramatic steam with ruthless efficiency.

The writer-director provides his ensemble cast with a wonderfully witty screenplay, bursting with acidic one-liners in which the actors savour their dialogue and bring a delicious moral ambiguity to their roles.

Hackman is magnificent as the grizzled crim with a whole pack of aces up his sleeve, contrasting nicely with Rockwell's brutish young upstart.

Pidgeon, Lindo and Jay offer solid support and DeVito enthusiastically chews scenery as the puppet master who fails to realise that someone is pulling his strings.