High Life cashes in on ATMs

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      TORONTO—Winnipeg-based filmmaker Gary Yates was looking for a story about a Brinks heist when he was sent a copy of a play called High Life. He liked the characters and the idea, but he didn’t like the setting. The play took place in the modern era and was about a group of losers who decide to rob bank machines. In a Toronto hotel, Yates explains that he was concerned the film would lack credibility given today’s technologies; the alternative was to make a period piece.


      Watch the trailer for High Life.

      “You forgive a lot in a play, but when you see it for real in a movie, it’s not the same. I thought, ”˜Even these losers would think this scam wouldn’t work in recent years because the ATM machines are protected by cameras and computer systems.’ So I thought, ”˜Let’s make it 1983 and let’s make it the very first ATM machines.’ By making those changes, I believed the scam might work. More importantly, I could see how they would think it would work, because half the time the machines were breaking down and people kept their PIN numbers in their wallets.

      “So that was all very new, and then it enabled me to think thematically: these machines actually represent something. I will make these guys classic leftover rock fans from the 1970s out to rob from the cold hands of the future.’ ”

      The movie, which was cowritten by Yates and the author of the play, Lee MacDougall, stars Timothy Olyphant as an ex-con who sees that there might be an opportunity to take advantage of the bank-machine phenomenon. He organizes a gang to rob the machines, but chooses a group of thugs from another era who don’t appear to be up to the task. (The movie opens Friday [January 29] in Vancouver.)

      Yates says that although the play—which mostly takes place in the getaway car—married comedy and drama, he had concerns about doing the same thing on film. He says he wanted the audience to laugh at the inept gangsters, but also take it seriously. Although it had been done before, there were risks involved.

      “The great movies that I can think of make me laugh one minute and make me tense the next. Sexy Beast is a great example of that. Pulp Fiction has that as well, and I love that dichotomy because it makes it fun to watch. You want to root for these guys even as you are anticipating the worst. Everyone has their favourite of these losers because they are so lovable. But it was a risk. It’s a thin line that you are trying to straddle. If it seems too funny, people don’t take the plot seriously, and if it’s too serious, it’s a drama about a robbery, and that was not the film I wanted to make.”

      The film has opened in a few international centres and is doing well. He says some people are laughing despite themselves. “We premiered it in Berlin and got a great response from the film. Then I took it to Shanghai, and I had no idea what the Chinese were going to make of the film. They loved it! They were laughing, but they were laughing into their hands. I don’t think they knew they were supposed to be laughing because it is a dark comedy, and a couple of them asked me later, ”˜What does “dark comedy” mean? What is black humour?’ I said, ”˜It is when you are laughing at someone’s misfortune, but as long as the film has something to say it is okay to laugh.’

      “It is playing with audiences in different cultures, which I feel shows there is a universal truth within the movie.”

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