Heist movies play to everyone's dream of easy money, earned by criminal smarts and daring. But a convention of the genre, going back to Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film "The Killing" and beyond, is that the big score is also a big trap for the heroes. They over-reach, under-estimate or otherwise screw up, and all that glorious lucre fades out of reach. The lesson: even clever crime doesn't pay.
Yu Irie's over-amped "Gangoose" is similarly old school, with twists borrowed from the source manga, which is in turn based on writer Daisuke Suzuki's real-life reportage.
The biggest, and in some ways oddest, is that the three heroes — all alumni of the same reform school — target only the ill-gotten gains of outlaws. This makes their job infinitely more dangerous, but the quick-tempered, quick-thinking Saike (Mahiro Takasugi), porky, good-natured Kazuki (Ryo Kato) and hulking, slow-witted Takeo (Daichi Watanabe) have their reasons. They are, we see, not naughty by nature, but by harsh circumstance. Their crimes against crooks become a sort of existential payback for criminal injustices committed against them.