Karen Cliche, Tom McCamus (2001 Steal/Riders)
Excerpt from Vampire High TV 2001: Karen Cliche | Steal/Riders | Getty Images
Karen's Favorite Vampire High Episode
Karen has appeared in film and television. She has a starring role in the Miramax film tentatively entitled Heist, with Stephen Dorff.
© Vampire High TV
Excerpt from Variety 5/7/02: Karen Cliche
Review: ‘Riders’
May 7, 2002 | 07:05PM PT Lisa Nesselson
Ready for that seg of the international market that’s always on the lookout for adequate, reasonably entertaining filler, pic’s cast should continue to attract curious viewers on TV and video after theatrical dates. Given its central quartet of under-30 daredevils who put their athletic prowess in the service of felonies, “Riders” is a regular catalog of don’t-try-this-at-home stunts. Lensed by Cesar-winning d.p. Tetsuo Nagata (“The Officers’ Ward”), the widescreen package, under the command of action vet and “Taxi” helmer Gerard Pires, looks pretty good on a budget of $15 million. But the story is downright silly. Slim (Stephen Dorff), along with g.f. Alex (Karen Cliche), Otis (Cle Bennett) and Frank (Steven McCarthy), intends to get rich quick by robbing banks and hijacking armored cars. Group plans to get away with the loot via snazzy roller blading, fearless driving, displays of underwater prowess or short-drop skydiving.
© Variety
Excerpt from Adventure Inc. 9/02: Karen Cliche
Karen Cliche as Mackenzie Previn
Prior to joining the cast of “Adventure Inc.,” Cliche appeared in the fast paced action thriller “Riders” starring Stephen Dorff and Natasha Henstridge. She portrayed Alex, one of four young people who get their thrills from robbing banks. The feature has been released in Europe and in the U.S., the film is distributed by Miramax.
© Adventure Inc.
Excerpt from Box Office Prophets 2003: Karen Cliche
Riders Release Date: TBA 2003
ALERT: Title changes ahead! This project was originally known as The Heist, but the filmmakers didn't want this to be confused with the David Mamet film Heist. So they decided to change it to 2-11, the police code for armed robbery. I guess they didn't think that would draw in moviegoers. They finally settled on the current title, $teal, with that clever use of the dollar sign.
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Main Cast Stephen Dorff, Natasha Henstridge
Supporting Cast Karen Cliche, Steven Berrkoff, Bruce Payne
© Box Office Prophets
Excerpt from Exclaim 4/1/03: Karen Cliche and Reel Film
Steal Gerard Pires
By David Nusair Published Apr 01, 2003
Steal opens with a surprisingly exciting bank robbery/escape sequence, featuring a group of thieves making their getaway on rollerblades. Soon afterwards, we meet the team - Slim (Dorff), Alex (Karen Cliche), Frank (Steven McCarthy), and Otis (Cle Bennett). Their jubilation is short lived, though, once they're blackmailed by a mysterious man into pulling off a heist of his choosing; if they don't, he'll go to the police with some decidedly incriminating evidence.
© Exclaim
Excerpt from Jam!Movies 4/25/03: Karen Cliche and Tom McCamus
A petty larceny: Steal has its appeal
By LIZ BRAUN*
Technically speaking, Steal is a big fat mess. Some of the acting is fairly horrible, too. Luckily, this extreme sports/bank job hybrid is so action-packed that you can overlook plenty. Well, maybe not. Steal begins with a chase -- on roller blades -- that is pure adrenaline, and the film continues to pump out sequences of terrific action, all accompanied by an anxiety-provoking rock score. The heists are clever, quick and clean. The get-aways involve creative physical activity and energetic camera work. So much for the good stuff. On the negative side, Steal doesn't really have a plot that makes sense. Stephen Dorff stars as the head of the robbery gang, with Cle Bennet, Steven McCarthy and Karen Cliche as his crew. They are young, attractive and gifted thieves. They do not use guns. After one job, the team discovers they have several millions in bonds that cannot be traced. They're rich! No need to steal again! Then, when it turns out that the bonds belong to mobsters, a pack of bad guys are after our heroes.
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Tom McCamus turns up briefly as a gun-toting creep who perhaps fulfills some Canadian content thingy. We can't be sure.
© Canoe Jam
Excerpt from Globe and Mail 4/25/03: Karen Cliche
A con, but no payoff
LIAM LACEY From Friday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Apr. 25 2003, 12:00 AM EDT
Steal
Directed by Gérard Pires
Written by Mark Ezra and Gerard Pires
Starring Stephen Dorff and Natasha Henstridge
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The gang -- a kind of Mod Squad on the wrong side of the law -- includes hunky guy Slim (Stephen Dorff), the often wig-wearing Alex (Karen Cliche), dorky guy Frank (Steven McCarthy), and black guy Otis (Clé Bennett). Their plan is to do a series of quick hits, then retire young.
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The evil boss's assistant is played by the talented Stratford veteran Tom McCamus (The Sweet Hereafter, A Long Day's Journey into Night). Out of respect for his talent, I was relieved when he got killed quickly.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Movie List 5/5/03: Karen Cliche & Movie Soothsayer
$teal (also known as “Riders”)
by Dean Kish
Skate fast, dodge bullets and smell the cold hard cash. Now can you say; been there done that. That is basically what “$teal” is. Indie film rebel Stephen Dorff stars as Slim, a master thief who uses extreme stunts to make off with the goods. In Slim’s posse are hard-as-nails bad girl, Alex (Karen Cliche), resident comic relief Frank (Steven McCarthy) and reliable Otis (Cle Bennett). The foursome find themselves at the brink of the biggest heist of their careers except the scope and magnitude of the heist gets complicated when the posse is blackmailed into splitting their retirement money or risk exposure.
© Movie List
Excerpt from SciFi Talk 11/9/03: Karen Cliche | listen
Karen Cliche on Sci-Fi Talk
Tony Tellado: The movie you did called "Riders," has a couple of actors I really like. Stephen Dorrf, and also Natasha Hendstrige, was of course, in "Species," fans remember her from.
Karen Cliche: Yeah.
Tony: What was that experience like for you?
Karen: Oh, that was so great. I mean, we did that in Montreal, and it's actually called "Steal" here.
Tony: Oh, okay.
Karen: And it's been called "Riders" in France, and it's "Steal" here. Actually Steal just came up on DVD. I just saw it in H&D, it had its own little display. It was like, wow, cool! Two years later. It was really fun. Steal was great, you know, we hung out with Stephen a lot. He's a really cool guy. And so were the other cast. Now, Natasha, I didn't work with very much.
Tony: Oh, okay.
Karen: We didn't have many scenes together, maybe one or two. But she was actually pregnant during it, so...
Tony: That's right, yes.
Karen: Yeah, she was pregnant. And so they had to do a lot of boxes in front of her belly. But I met her a couple of times, and she was great. And it was a really cool experience because that too was high speed, action packed. It was really cool, and I got to do a lot of things. I first learned how to shoot firearms there and do a couple of stunts. And it was a really, really cool experience.
Tony: That must have been just right before Ghost of Mars. And then she had the baby and went to do Ghost of Mars right after that.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: So that was like, boy, I don't know how she pulled that off. More credit to her.
Karen: Yeah, yeah.
© SciFi Talk
Excerpt from The Oneliner 11/28/03: Karen Cliche
Steal: ful acting, horrible plot, barely decent action scenes, really nice bridge.
Released in 2002, certified UK-15. Reviewed on 28 Nov 2003 by Scott Morris
Also known as Riders, amongst a bunch of other names, this is the latest from French director Gerard Pires.
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Slim (Stephen Dorff), Karen (Natasha Henstridge), Otis (Cle Bennett) and Frank (Steven McCarthy) are a group of extreme sports loving bank robbers. This is the sum total of what we learn about them. We're introduced to them robbing a bank, as is their want, and making a rollerblading getaway that isn't so much audacious as it is daft.
© The Oneliner
Excerpt from Urban Cine File 8/19/04 and 12/4/04: Karen Cliche
STEAL: DVD
SYNOPSIS: Slim (Stephen Dorff) is the leader of a gang of bank robbers, who comes up with a daring plan to pull off five heists in one week, using a different extreme sport each time to make their getaway. The first two heists go without a hitch, and they even find an extra $20 million in bonds. But corrupt cop Lt Macgruder (Bruce Payne) is hot on their tail, and wants a piece of the action, forcing Slim, Alex (Karen Cliché), Otis (Cle Bennett) and Frank (Steven McCarthy) to hand over the booty to him. But there are two other problems: hit man Surtayne (Steven Berkoff) is after them, chasing the $20 million in bonds that actually belongs to the Mob, as is Slim's new girlfriend Karen (Natasha Henstridge), who is excited by the challenge of catching Slim in the act.
Review by Louise Keller: A fast-paced heist movie with big stunts, black humour, twists and double crosses, Steal might not deliver the goods when it comes to relationships and plot resolutions, but it is memorable for its ingenious escape action scenes. Originally titled Riders (Steal is a better title), this French/English/Canadian co-production shot in Montreal, has taken director Gerard Pires' (Taxi) film nearly three years to reach Australia. And its budget of over US$15 million is mostly spent on its spectacular stunts, which include a thrilling roller blade sequence after a daring heist in which roller-bladers escape at high speed along footpaths, down stairs, balancing on the side of a truck and even leaping defiantly over a police car. 'That beats everything, even sex,' Karen Cliche's leggy blonde Alex muses to Stephen Dorff's fearless Slim.
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Much of the appeal lies with Dorff, whose sexy and charismatic presence draws us to him, even if we don't really know much about his character beyond the fact that he is smart, resourceful and has nerves of steel. His relationship with Alex, a glamour puss who wears revealing clothes, stilettos and fish-nets, is mostly implied rather than stated, and they spend most of their screen time fighting like an old married couple.
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The plot and the script are flawed: we never know how the foursome escape from the submerged security truck after they drive it into water, nor do we believe the sequence of events when things don't go as planned. The resolution of the relationship between Slim and Alex is also less than satisfying. DVD extra features include the original trailer, interviews with cast and crew plus a behind-the-scenes featurette.
© Urban Cine File
Excerpt from Canoe Jam! 12/1/04: Karen Cliche
Crime doesn't pay
LOUIS B. HOBSON Dec 1, 2004, Last Updated: 2:41 PM ET
Like last year's Extreme Ops, what the heist thriller Steal lacks in credibility it more than makes up for in action.
Steal opens with a bank robbery that occurs in the heart of Montreal in the middle of the afternoon. As brazen as the robbery seems, the thieves' getaway proves more daring as they careen through busy streets and over cars on rollerblades. To this gang, the adrenalin rush is as rewarding as the loot they steal. The leader and mastermind of the gang, who calls himself Slim (Stephen Dorff) is a wily, sensuous fox. He's barely called it quits with his punkish girlfriend Alex (Karen Cliche), and he's putting the moves on Karen (Natasha Henstridge) who's moving in down the block.
© Canoe
Excerpts from DVD Town 4/5/05: Karen Cliche
DVD review
By John J. Puccio FIRST PUBLISHED Apr 5, 2005
Steal (DVD) APPROX. 84 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2002 - MPA RATING: R
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"Steal" was made in 2002, getting limited release in Europe for the next two years before being picked up by Miramax for distribution on DVD in the U.S. On its way to the screen, it was backed by nine different production companies, thirteen producers, and sixteen distributors worldwide. Of course, it has become almost the norm for motion pictures to have multiple backers these days, but this example may have been taken to the extreme. The resultant movie is a compromise at best, a standard, run-of-the-mill heist flick. As the movie went from hand to hand and place to place, it acquired a number of different titles, among them "$teal," "2-11," "Heist," "Extrême inconduite," "Riders," and "Team Riders," depending on its country of release. They all add up the same thing: Boring sameness.
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"Steal" seems the very encapsulation of the dumb action thriller. Nothing in it makes a lick of sense. Stephen Dorff plays Slim, the leader of small band of genius thieves. He's supposed to be charismatic in the Sinatra/Clooney sense from the "Ocean's" series, but for a really smart guy, he can be awfully dumb. The other members of the team are Karen Cliche as Alex, a pretty gang member who has a romantic interest in Slim; Steven McCarthy as Frank; and Cle Bennett as Otis. Their first robbery, the one they skate away from, nets them $300,000 in cash. It's their first job and they plan on doing more.
© DVD Town
Excerpt from Slice of Sci-Fi 8/7/07: Karen Cliche
Slice of SciFi Interview With Flash Gordon's Karen Cliche
Posted by Sam on Tuesday, 7 Aug 2007
Karen has appeared in movies such as the fast-paced action thriller “Steal” as Alex, one of four young adrenaline junkie bank robbers.
© Slice of Scifi