Stanley Tucci Steals the Mona Lisa in New Movie
TORONTO – Having just watched three successive films during a long flight home, one of which was about a blood lusting mythical unicorn that gruesomely murders its captors, I asked myself how some movies attract investment – while others take several decades, if ever. But as I touched ground Amazon MGM Studios announced that filming had begun on Masterplan, an international heist movie about a band of thieves – led by Stanley Tucci – who attempt to steal the Mona Lisa.
Although heist films have become the pop art of cinema, or escapist fare with glamourous backdrops, it’s difficult to understand that the only real attempt at telling this story dates back to the silent era in 1931 (The Theft of the Mona Lisa). And that was a good twenty years after the painting had actually been stolen from the Louvre.
Masterplan is a fictional plot, but writer director Thomas Vincent would have undoubtedly done his homework on the real-life heist perpetrated by Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911. A former employee of the Louvre at the time, Peruggia believed that Da Vinci’s masterpiece belonged in Italy. Capable of stealing several priceless works, he committed himself solely to returning La Gioconda to Florence.
The manner in which he did it was spectacularly unimpressive, yet simultaneously fascinating. Of course, Peruggia had two very clear advantages.
One, he had actually helped to install the protective glass surrounding the painting – and so knew how to remove it. Two, it was 1911 and there were no security cameras – just armed guards.
So how exactly did he do it? Peruggia visited the museum on a Sunday night, knowing it would be closed to the public on Monday. He hid in a storage closet and on Monday morning took the painting from the wall, placed it under his white workman’s smock and exited the Louvre.
But what he thought would culminate with a glorious Florentine return, ended with his arrest two years later.
In Amazon’s new film, which is not based on the real-life heist, Stanley Tucci plays a legendary thief who recruits two young strangers to help him filch the Mona Lisa. The twist: his recruits are his long-lost children – which he doesn’t immediately reveal. His daughter Chiara, played by Simona Tabasco, is a sharp Italian cybercrime expert. And his son Jay, played by Victor Belmondo, is a French explosives specialist.
“Thrown into a chaotic reunion they never asked for, this new family must learn to work together — and try not to kill each other — if they want any chance at pulling off the heist of the century” as per the film’s synopsis. The movie will be available exclusively on Prime Video in over 240 countries.
In the pics: Victor Belmondo, Stanley Tucci and Simona Tabasco; Vincenzo Peruggia
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
