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Tim Robbins says "Take my wife, please" in Life of Crime based on Elmore Leonard novel


Here's one I almost missed. The movie is titled Life of Crime and it's based on a book by Elmore Leonard. What!? You've read every Elmore Leonard book ever written and you've never heard of Life of Crime? That's because they went and switched the name up. Life of Crime is based on The Switch, Leonard's 1978 novel about two convicts kidnapping the wife of a wealthy real estate developer. Except he refuses to pay the million dollar ransom. He's just not that into her. Why'd it take so long to get Leonard's tale to the screen when so many of Leonard's novels and stories have already hit both the big (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Be Cool, 3:10 to Yuma [based on the short story] ) and little screen (Justified, based on his story 'Fire in the Hole)? I don't know. I do know that before his death last year at the age of 87, over thirty of his novels and short stories had been turned into adaptations. You can peruse his entire list of film and television credits for yourself on his imdb.com page.


Here's how the publisher summed up Leonard's book-
Dangerously eccentric characters, razor-sharp black humor, brilliant dialog, and suspense all rolled into one tight package—that’s The Switch, Elmore Leonard’s classic tale of a kidnapping gone wrong…or terribly right, depending on how you look at it. The Grand Master whom the New York Times Book Review calls, “the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever,” has written a wry and twisting tale that any of the other all-time greats—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, James M. Cain, Robert Parker…every noir author who ever walked a detective, cop, or criminal into a shadowy alley—would be thrilled to call their own. Leonard, the man who has given us U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (currently starring in TV’s Justified) is at his storytelling best, as a spurned wife decides to take a rightful—and profitable—revenge on her deceiving hubby by teaming up with the two thugs he hired to abduct her.



Tim Robbins and Jennifer Aniston are playing Frank and Mickey Dawson, the husband and wife, with John Hawkes, Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) as the kidnappers. Isla Fisher is Melanie ("with the big tits"), the woman Frank would rather cuddle than his wife. This isn't Fisher's first foray as the mistress; she was Tom's woman on the side, Myrtle, in The Great Gatsby. We see Will Forte briefly in the trailer as Marshall Taylor; I'm hoping his part isn't super small as he was so surprisingly good in Nebraska. Life of Crime comes out at the end of summer, on August 29th. Give the trailer a gander below. It looks typically dark and weird and wildly funny, but that's Elmore Leonard! I'm glad the filmmakers chose to stay in period so Tim Robbins can look ridiculous in plaid bathing trunks and as for the kidnappers, I don't know what's more frightening - the animal mask or the one of Nixon!