This was the first film to take all the traditional aspects of a heist movie that we know and love today and put them all together into a wonderful film noir fricassee. It has everything. The criminal mastermind just out of jail who puts together a group of guys, each with a very specific set of skills to pull off the ultimate jewellery heist. They bring their collective abilities together to form a thievery corporation, theyre the Mighty Morphin Power Raiders if you will. The plan is laid out in a dingy, smoke filled room and then they dig tunnels, crack safes and use plastic explosives to blow up stuff. All the facets that we naturally come to expect from the heist movies of today. This is the OG heist movie. Its the Eric B and Rakim of robberies, the Minor Threat of thievery. But it's more than just a film about stealing diamonds from a safe. It's about the two way street that was and still is the American Dream, it's the lingering spectre of the Great Depression that would stay with everyone who lived it through. The Asphalt Jungle pretty much wrote the book on how to do a good heist movie, and then it stole said book from a locked safe inside a sealed room and made off with it.
