FBI Stakeout See.

I got lucky when I bought the October 25, 2010 edition of the New Yorker.
First, let me tell you all that my favourite genre of film after comedy, is the mafia/heist genre, and David Means captures everything that is great about those films. I actually have been looking for other stories he has published. I haven’t read any of them yet but I found one in Harper’s I just hope I can access it.
The story in the LXXXVI, No. 33 issue of the New Yorker is called The Tree Line, Kansas, 1934, and this piece o’ fiction almost makes me want to get snooty as heck, start wearing Dockers, and subscribe to the New Yorker. This story reminds me of Reservoir Dogs the way it goes from future to past, only Reservoir Dogs is split evenly between present and past.
The description of the young agent is superb. You really get the sense of how naïve, inexperienced, and really stupid this character is, when he is saying how the stakeout is pointless, and in the end is completely unprepared for Carson, and his two other heavily armed men (The bank robbers). I just loved how it seemed like the classic heist movies of the 60’s and 70’s. The story progresses at a seemingly slow rate until the reader, and the characters are
I was torn on how I felt about the way Means creates lists of things describing the young agent and other aspects throughout the piece. I like them at first because it was a nice change of pace, which allowed a great description through the words of Lee, but they were so long I thought they eventually separated themselves from the story, and took away from other aspects of the story. Aspects such as suspense, especially at the end I felt were compromised by this strategy.
That said I want to reiterate that this story is a fabulous read, that took me by surprise at the end, although after watching loads of movies such as Bonnie and Clyde, and Thieves Like Us I thought at least one of the two agents would be killed. Truthfully I thought it would be poor old Lee.

This clip is the opposite of the story, but it is as hiest shoot down as it gets.