The Score delivers the summer movie goods in abundance. A very well-made, hugely entertaining film that is a recalls the heist genre flicks of the 1960s and '70s, The Score proves that they do still make them like they used to every once in a while.

Robert DeNiro plays Nick Wells, a Montreal jazz club owner who also happens to be a professional thief. Nick is looking forward to calling it a day in the crime department so he can concentrate on his club and settle down with his girlfriend, a flight attendant named Diane (Angela Bassett) who is willing to live with him if and only if he stops being a thief.

His longtime fence, Max (Marlon Brando), may just have the job Nick has been looking for: a smuggled (and valuable) French scepter has been impounded deep inside Montreal's Customs House. Its value is rumored to be in the area of about $30 million (Nick would see about six million of that).

Of course, there are a couple of strings attached: one is that the heist would take place in Montreal, the city that Wells resides in. One of his steadfast rules is that he will not do scores in the city he lives in. The other is that he works alone. Unfortunately for Nick, the person who had the idea for the heist, a cocky young upstart named Jack Teller (Edward Norton), wants in.

In the guise of a mentally challenged janitor named Brian, Jack has been casing out the place for weeks. Of course, the two have completely different styles of "work" ethic and aren't exactly crazy about each other. But, in order to pull the score off, they do need each other and that makes them reluctant partners.

So, as you can figure out from the above, The Score uses as many clichés as it can to tell its story (the old pro out for one last score, the wise old mentor, the arrogant new kid on the block). Yet, director Frank Oz, along with screenwriters Kario Salem, Lem Dobbs and Scott Marshall Smith know how to make the material work. They take their time to establish the characters, scenarios and introduce us to various techniques used in planning and executing a heist.

This allows for the actors to bring their characters to life while also giving us an opportunity to get involved with the story's events. Oz, after directing light-as-a-feather comedies like Bowfinger and Housesitter, shows that he can handle dramatic material just as well (the tension he builds during the heist is very impressive). What is even more impressive is the fact that The Score is virtually free of the violence and destruction that normally accompanies films of this sort (like Swordfish), which should hopefully make it more accessible to a wider audience.

Norton, DeNiro and Brando, working perfectly together, fill the screen with Method Acting greatness (big surprise there, huh?). DeNiro's Nick is an older variation on his character from 1995's Heat, one that says little but has a lot going on internally. Brando, whose choices in movie roles over the past decade or so have been eclectic to say the least, nicely underplays his supporting role as Max. His genial approach to the mentor role is his most appealing since The Freshman.

Norton, however, is the real standout here. Ever since his debut in 1996's Primal Fear, Edward Norton has continued to cement his standing as the best young actor to hit Hollywood in a very long time. He is entirely convincing as both the cocky young punk Jack and the mentally challenged Brian and his interaction with DeNiro proves he can more than hold his own against the best of them. Only Angela Bassett fails to make an impact on the viewer as DeNiro's girlfriend. The blame cannot be placed on her though as her screen time is extremely limited and the character itself is underwritten.

The Score may not set the world on fire and it will not reinvent the heist genre. But it does remind us of the things that make a movie worthwhile: character, a workable plot and competence on both sides of the camera. It also accomplishes something that most films this summer haven't been able to do: entertain.

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