Flypaper (2011 film)

Flypaper is a 2011 American crime comedy film directed by Rob Minkoff, written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and distributed by IFC Films. Starring Patrick Dempsey and Ashley Judd, the film centers around two groups of criminals that stick up the same bank at the same time, holding all of the employees and bystanders hostage. One of the hostages (Dempsey) escapes captivity and attempts to deduce the unusual double-robbery, waggishly courting the affection of a bank teller (Judd) in the process.

Flypaper
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rob Minkoff
Written by	Jon Lucas Scott Moore
Produced by	Mark Damon Peter Safran Patrick Dempsey
Starring	Patrick Dempsey Ashley Judd Tim Blake Nelson Mekhi Phifer Matt Ryan Jeffrey Tambor John Ventimiglia Pruitt Taylor Vince Curtis Armstrong
Cinematography	Steven Poster
Edited by	Tom Finan
Music by	John Swihart
Production companies	Foresight Unlimited[1] The Safran Company[1]
Distributed by	IFC Films[1]
Release dates	January 28, 2011 (2011-01-28) (Sundance) August 19, 2011 (2011-08-19) (United States)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8 million[2]
Box office	$1.2 million[1]

Lucas and Moore had previously written The Hangover (2009), and met Minkoff in the months leading up to that film's release. Minkoff, best known for co-directing The Lion King (1994), expressed a desire to work with them, and agreed to head Flypaper when he learned they had written the script, which he described as "terrific."^[3] Filming took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in June 2010.

Flypaper premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2011 and had a limited theatrical release on August 19 of the same year. It received generally negative reviews and grossed just $1.2 million against its $8 million budget.

Plot

As Credit International bank teller Kaitlin Nest prepares to end her shift, a customer, Tripp Kennedy, approaches her and requests to have a $100 bill broken up into a specific configuration of coins. As he flirts with her, the bank is simultaneously stuck up by two groups of criminals; three high-tech professionals - Darrien, Weinstein and Gates - and two unmasked rednecks - "Peanut Butter" and "Jelly." While the trio wants to rob the vault, the duo simply wants the ATMs. A bystander named Jack Hayes is fatally shot and a crossfire gunfight is initiated. Tripp throws himself in the middle of the commotion and convinces the criminals to rob the bank concurrently. The trio locks Tripp, Kaitlin and a group of hostages in an upstairs kitchen while Peanut Butter and Jelly attempt unsuccessfully to break open the ATMs with a series of weapons-grade plastic explosives. Tripp promptly escapes from the kitchen through the ceiling and ventures into the bank to deduce who killed Hayes.

The trio is repeatedly stymied in their efforts to break into the vault through a series of mishaps that exposes their identities to the hostages. When Tripp infiltrates the trio's workspace to inquire about Hayes' murder, Weinstein reveals that the bank's security system was deactivated and rebooted just prior to the criminals' arrival. Tripp is returned to the upstairs office where he pesters the bank's computer technician Mitchell Wolf into admitting that he sold intel about the security reboot to the criminals. During a bathroom break, Mitch has a panic attack and stress vomits, prompting Weinstein to retrieve medicine for him. Meanwhile, Gates fraternizes with Peanut Butter and Jelly as they compare the criminal groups' rankings among the FBI's most wanted bank robbers, including the #1 most wanted fugitive, Vicellous Drum.

Peanut Butter and Jelly ask for the hostages' help with detonating their explosives. Tripp volunteers so that he can search Hayes for clues. Tripp discovers that Hayes was an undercover agent carrying an FBI-issue gun, brandishing the firearm and drawing the attention of the criminals. When Tripp deduces that Weinstein must have killed Hayes, he, Darrien and Gates go searching for Weinstein, only to find he and Mitch both armed and fatally wounded by gunshot. As Gates and Tripp ponder how both men could have drawn and killed each other at the same time, Darrien decides to flee the bank. When he can't find the key to the trio's escape mechanism, he uses a blowtorch, but the blowtorch is rigged and he is killed in an explosion. Tripp finds the clicker Darrien was looking for in Weinstein's mouth, further suggesting that Weinstein had turned on his co-conspirators.

An exasperated Gates teams up with Peanut Butter and Jelly and plots to use their unconventional explosives in a last ditch effort to break into the vault. Tripp escapes captivity again to investigate all of the evening's suspicious activity. Tripp convinces Jelly to reveal that Vicellous Drum is the duo's point man who summoned them to the bank via a fax. Tripp pilfers Jelly's gun and barters the previously missing clicker for a similar fax that Gates and the trio received, also from Vicellous Drum. Tripp deduces that Drum summoned all of the criminals to the bank concurrently for the purpose of eliminating them all. This revelation is compounded when one of the hostages, a Swiss bank representative, is found dead in a cupboard, also in possession of a fax from Drum.

Tripp tries to convince Gates that the robbery is in fact an organized ambush and that Drum is in the bank. Ignoring him, Gates detonates the duo's explosives and finally breaches the vault. As the remaining criminals load their take into duffel bags and the hostages look on, the bank's security guard Mr. Clean arms himself in a fit of paranoia and urges the others to stay away from him. Tripp and Kaitlin devise a plan to cut the lights in the bank so that Drum will go searching for a pair of night-vision goggles that Tripp had previously discovered in the bathroom. This ploy reveals that Mr. Blythe, Kaitlin's hypoglycemic bank manager, is in fact Vicellous Drum. Drum kills Mr. Clean and Gates before cornering and striking Tripp in the bathroom. When Drum's identity is revealed, he attempts to bribe the remaining hostages with money, but they fatally shoot him. Peanut Butter and Jelly gleefully take all of the money that the trio had originally wanted from the vault and flee for Cancún.

The following morning, Tripp receives medicine from an ambulance while Rex, a loan officer, talks to the press about the robbery and Madge, a bank teller, convenes with bank management about compensation for the night's misfortune. A group of police officers help Kaitlin load what appear to be wedding gifts into her car. Tripp follows Kaitlin into her car and opens her gifts, revealing large sums of money encased by currency straps and that Kaitlin herself is a bank robber. Admitting to being in love with her, Tripp persuades Kaitlin into forming a bank-robbing duo of their own, but devoid of murder or bloodshed. Kaitlin reveals that she is Alexis Black, the FBI's #3 most wanted bank-robbing fugitive and the two drive off together.

Cast

• Patrick Dempsey as Tripp Kennedy
• Ashley Judd as Kaitlin Nest
• Tim Blake Nelson as Billy Ray 'Peanut Butter' McCloud
• Mekhi Phifer as Darrien
• Matt Ryan as Rupert Gates
• Jeffrey Tambor as Gordon Blythe/Vicellous Drum
• John Ventimiglia as Weinstein
• Pruitt Taylor Vince as Wyatt 'Jelly' Jenkins
• Curtis Armstrong as Mitchell Wolf
• Rob Huebel as Rex Newbauer
• Adrian Martinez as Mr. Clean
• Natalia Safran as 'Swiss Miss'
• Octavia Spencer as Madge Wiggins
• Eddie Matthews as Jack Hayes
• Rob Boltin as Credit Manager

Production

The opening animatic sequence was created by Geefwee Boedoe. Boedoe had been planning to fully animate the sequence, but due to budget and because Minkoff enjoyed the animatic so much, he decided to use that in the final product.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 15% based on reviews from 20 critics.^[4]