THE GOOD THIEF

Nick Nolte, at 62, has a face that’s like a crumbly piece of parchment. In Neil Jordan’s stylishly lightweight heist caper, Nolte plays Bob, a burglar, gambler, and heroin addict who gets to growl out a lot of existential film-noir pensees like ”Always play the game to the limit — damn the consequences!” Jordan has taken Bob le Flambeur, Jean-Pierre Melville’s satiny little French safecracking thriller from 1955, and frosted it with so much underworld atmosphere and ”character” that the heist is now effectively in the background. The film is rife with extravagant gestures, but there’s got to be more to a haunted romantic dream than Nick Nolte’s aura of honorable wreckage.