Robot and Frank

Frank (Frank Langella) is a bad-tempered, increasingly sentile retired former cat burglar with a stubborn attachment to his own independence; robot is a mechanical health-care aid with advanced motor and cognitive abilities. They commit crime.

That's pretty much the plot of this independent film. OIn the near future, our elderly ex-fellon is bought a robot helper by his son (James Marsden) and, when it suggests a 'project' to give him structure and help maintain his memory, he teaches it to pick locks so that they can commit burglaries together. Complications occur in the form of the librarian (Susan Sarandon) he has a crush on and a radical anti-robot daughter (Liv Tyler), as the unlikely partnership provides him with a new lease of life.

I'm not a great fan of either James Marsden or Liv Tyler, but they were both pretty decent in this, and Langella and Sarandon are serious class acts. It's an odd little film, but rather sweet and not a little sad in parts, being not just a sci-fi buddy comedy about a man an his robot stealing jewels, but also a touching exploration of the nature and importance of memory, and of its loss.