Metacritic reviews

It’s snappy, looks pretty, and moves along affably enough.

In hindsight, irrespective of the solid performances from Cuthbert as Andrea and the headliner, this film suffers from an overabundance of ideas. Leading in short order to a stylistically slick but confusingly over-packed genre mash up.

Ultimately, though, it all comes down to Duhamel. For a brief, heady moment, the real Galvan had all of Canada intrigued by his exploits. But the greatest coup of all is that his legacy will now forever be defined by Bandit.

The pacing is too leisurely and, although Ungar is invested in telling Galvan’s story and fleshing out the man behind the dubious legend, there are times when it feels like he’s bypassing a more intense rendition of the same basic story. Bandit offers more of a diversion than an experience.

At two hours of repetitive heists and costume changes, Bandit grows bloated and progressively tiresome.

Even if it bogs down in the middle acts — seriously bogs down — and has missing pieces of the story puzzle even as it takes pains to show us what would be his downfall, this Allan Ungar dramedy plays. More or less.

Ungar’s Bandit entertains because of genre alone, but the ambiguous messaging leaves much to be desired.

Bandit wants you to believe there’s some kind of moral underpinning to all this. There isn’t. There’s only another place to case, another outfit to don, another person to lie to, another bank to rob. No one’s born bad, but that doesn’t mean Bandit, the film or the man, is good, either.