"Always play the game to the limit and damn the consequences." This is the motto of Bob (Nick Nolte), an ageing gambler who's currently down on his luck, and his money, in the French Riviera.

Befriending a teenage Eastern European runaway (Nutsa Kukhiani), Bob vows to kick his heroin habit, and prepares for an audacious heist on a Monte Carlo casino, which houses its priceless art collection in a nearby vault.

Vladimir (Emir Kusturica) should help the thieves get round the very security system he himself designed. But Bob also needs to allay the suspicions of his detective friend Roger (Tchéky Karyo) and to cut some sort of deal with the twins planning their own robbery at the same location

Irish writer-director Neil Jordan's latest is a breezy reworking of the Jean-Pierre Melville classic "Bob le Flambeur", itself a 50s French homage to the American gangster movie.

Shifting the action from Paris and Deauville to the contemporary Côte d'Azur, Jordan recaptures the free-wheeling 70s spirit of Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" and "California Split" - films which are less concerned with plot mechanics than with characters and atmosphere.

The grizzled Nolte is perfect as the mumbling, stumbling Bob: he's not an especially talented thief, yet he has a gentlemanly charm and a gift for stories, which are so seductive to those within his milieu.

The imaginative casting choices - Georgian newcomer Kukhiani (memorably world-weary and completely assured), Saïd Taghmaoui (playing one of Bob's most loyal and enthusiastic admirers), Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, and American twins the Polish brothers - are crucial to the story's cosmopolitan feel.

Jordan and cinematographer Chris Menges - shooting mainly at night and with handheld cameras - immerse you into Bob's chaotic world, using flashes of stop-motion to convey the altered perceptions of a recovering addict.

It's a safe bet to recommend "The Good Thief".