Hackman teaches a class in sass

David Mamet's new film "Heist," like last summer's "The Score" and "Sexy Beast," is a movie about a career criminal brought back for One Last Job. What "Heist" has that the others don't is the deft dialogue of Mamet, the Chicago playwright ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo") turned screenwriter/director whose unique writing is instantly recognizable, as much for its constant obscenity and sharp one-liners as anything.\n"My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him," says one character -- Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), who opens the movie by pulling off a ridiculously elaborate jewelry store job with the help of his wife (played by Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's real-life wife) and compatriots Bobby and Pinky (Delroy Lindo and Mamet standby Ricky Jay). Hoping to retire, he's urged to "do the other thing" by the jewelry heist's financier, played by a perpetually apoplectic Danny DeVito. "The other thing" turns out to be an even stickier caper involving a Swiss airplane and a whole lot of gold.\nThe movie naturally features a dizzying string of double, triple and quadruple crosses, and you never really know who's going to end up with whom (or what) until the credits start to roll. Hackman's character tells himself and others that he's doing the job so he'll have a nice retirement nest egg, but of course he's really doing it because he can. "Heist" moves slightly faster than Mamet's usual, more deliberate pacing, but is still refreshingly free of gratuitous car chases and explosions (there is an explosion, but it's not gratuitous).\n"Heist" follows earlier Mamet films like "The Spanish Prisoner" and "House of Games" that present a compelling look at extremely intelligent people taking money from the slower-witted ("Glengarry Glen Ross" sort of falls into this category as well, although it's set in the marginally more legitimate world of real estate). Like everything he does, "Heist" is smart, sharp and funny.