Now we often find that true life stories are stranger than fiction and and we also love a good heist movie and here we have news of a movie that combines both. Josh Duhamel the Flying Bandit ….at least he will be in his latest film about to start shooting soon.
Actor Josh Duhamel is probably best known for ” “Transformers – The Last Knight” and also ‘Love, Simon‘ and he has signed on to star in the heist thriller “Bandit”. The film is to be based on Robert Knuckle’s best-selling novel “The Flying Bandit” which follows the true-life exploits of Gilbert Galvan Jr. – an American criminal in Canada who was given the moniker ‘the Flying Bandit’ and was known for planning and executing at the very least an incredible sixty bank and jewelry heists. The nickname ‘the Flying Bandit’ was earned because Galvan was a collector of the frequent flyer program and would fly himself first class to a whole load of different cities across Canada and would often rob up to three banks in one day whilst disguised. In fact as the flying bandit Galvan still holds a bizarre record for the most consecutive robberies in Canadian history.
The flying bandit movie version will inevitably include a love interest which will counteract what by all accounts was a brilliant cop determinedly dogged in his pursuit of Galvan pursuing him across the country in order to take him down and put him behind bars
Interestingly the film is to be directed by Allan Ungar, whose last feature was ‘Gridlocked’ in 2015 (which won an audience award for Best Action Film in Toronto’s After Dark film festival) but better still was the fan film version of ‘Uncharted‘ that went viral last year Writing the flying bandit movie is Kraig Wenman who has an extensive 20+ year career in TV movies.
It would be interesting to get a perspective growing up as one of his daughters. I say this because one of the daughters is my friend. It’s interesting that her last name is Whiteman which was Gilbert’s alias when he made it to Canada and it’s her last name today. I think it would make a more complete story by interviewing the daughters about their memories of their father. The youngest daughters name is Hayleigh and I can’t see that she would have an issue telling her story. She has told me certain things that nobody could know that I’m sure would like to know regarding many things. Maybe she would be willing to say more, who knows.