BEFORE: I took a little time today to check through the list of "1,001 Movies You Should See Before You Die", because every year they come out with a new edition of that book, and I've been tracking my progress. There aren't many older films on the list that I still want to see, because the list is heavy with foreign films, arty films, and even some old silent movies, so except for the Bergman films that I want to see, anything before 1957 on that list doesn't really interest me - although "M" and "Grand Illusion" are still on my watchlist, I just have no way to link to them. But every year it seems they tweak the list a little bit - some older films fall out of favor I guess, but mostly it seems they clear a few films that were added during the last decade to make room for last year's crop of films. Sure enough, they dropped a couple pre-2000 films like "Three Kings" and "Magnolia", but also "Lincoln", "Spotlight", "The Revenant", "Hell or High Water", "The Jungle Book" (2016), "Jackie", "Manchester by the Sea" and "Arrival" - I'd dispute a couple of those, but who listens to me? So 10 films that I've seen are gone from the new list, which put me behind.
BUT, they also cleared off 11 films that I HAVEN'T seen, which made more room for other recent films that I HAVE seen - like "Lady Bird", "The Shape of Water", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", "Mother", "Blade Runner 2049", "Get Out", "The Greatest Showman", "Black Panther", "Crazy Rich Asians", "A Star Is Born", "Avengers: Infinity War", "The Favourite", "Sorry to Bother You", "Vice" (2018) and "BlacKkKlansman" - that's 15 more in my favor, so my stats improved by 5 films overall, thanks to my being up on currently hot films. Plus two films were added that are on my watchlist now, "Phantom Thread" and "Call Me By Your Name" - so now I've seen 425 of the 1,001 films, with 8 more of them on my watchlist. Reaching 450 may be possible, but I doubt I'll make it to the halfway mark.
Sorry, but I'm just not interested in "Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler" from 1922 or "Storm Over Asia" from 1928 - who the hell cares? I wish they'd clear out some of these films from the 1920's that nobody gives a damn about, except for a few hardcore film nerds, if they want to make more room for recent additions. Anyway, Robert De Niro carries over again from "Once Upon a Time in America" (which also happens to be on that list) to another crime-based film today.
THE PLOT: A father without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment partners with a greedy bouncer to rob the casino where they work. When things go awry, they're forced to hijack a city bus.
AFTER: At first it's easy to sort of dismiss this casino heist film, in which the robbery is followed by a long highway bus chase - so the first notion is to imagine that somebody just pitched "Ocean's 11 meets Speed" and honestly, that wouldn't be so far from wrong. But there's a little more going on than just that. It also reminds me quite a bit of the ending of "The Commuter", but the climax to that film took place on a derailed train, not a bus - still, the stand-off with cops, some of whom are corrupt, feels very similar to that one. I think this one was released three years before "The Commuter", so maybe that film copied this one?
And there's a clever way to make the audience feel sympathetic for the robbers - just create a larger villain. The "Ocean's 11" franchise used the same tactic, if they can get us to hate the casino owner, then by default we're sort of rooting for the robbers. For good measure this one also throws in the fact that the daughter of the main antihero has a daughter in the hospital, and she needs a lifesaving operation that HAS TO be paid for by Friday, or she'll lose her chance at the operation. Gotta call a NITPICK POINT here, because as bad as some health insurance is, I don't think too many hospitals operate on a cash basis. And if one does, then I'd probably say to find another hospital. We hear about hospital billing all the time, I think most hospitals will do an operation and then be willing to work out financing or an installment plan for a major operation, no? Thankfully I've never had to worry about this, so I may be in the wrong here.
The other cagey way to make our anti-hero here seem a bit more heroic is to pair him up with much more ruthless teammates, ones that don't care very much about the hostages, ones who only have their eyes on the prize, no matter what happens. Meanwhile former casino dealer Luke Vaughn actually has something of a conscience - he's still a potential thief but compared to both the casino owner and the other robbers, he's practically a saint by comparison. He even hits up the casino boss to see if he can borrow the money before going through with the robbery - the answer is "No", of course, but you can't say he didn't try.
The film doesn't say where the casino is located, but since it's a riverboat one assume that it's located somewhere on or near the Mississippi River, perhaps. Two years ago I went to a riverboat casino that was south of New Orleans, but some filming for this took place in Mobile, Alabama. But other answers are possible - since the thieves were trying to get the bus to go to Galveston, Texas perhaps it was fictionally located somewhere in Louisiana not far from the Texas border.
There are a couple of other neat little tricks played in this film, compared in the dialogue to a card trick, sleight of hand - a magician is able to get you to watch what one hand is doing, and that's when he does something crafty with the other hand. But I don't know about the "magic" trick performed here - I mean, sure, it's a way to get the money needed for the operation from one place to another. But for the trick to have been set up that way, that would have required for Vaughn to KNOW that things were going to go wrong in a very particular way, and OK, maybe he was hedging his bets, but how could he have known? The bus wasn't part of the original plan, remember - they had a getaway car waiting for them, how could he have known that the driver would bolt? Sorry, NITPICK POINT number 2 right there.
And then NITPICK POINT 3 concerns a character lighting up a cigarette at the end very very close to where another character had been doused with gasoline just a few minutes before. I'm super-paranoid about this at gas stations - I don't smoke but my wife does, and with this sort of thing it's best not to take any chances. I wouldn't strike a match within at least a block's radius of gas fumes.
The film moves very quickly, it won't waste a lot of your time, and it's very clever, almost too clever. By trying to impress us with the magic trick, logic ended up getting thrown out the window (and run over by the bus) at the end. Points for the attempt though.
Also starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan (last seen in "Rampage"), Dave Bautista (last seen in "The Boss"), Morris Chestnut (last seen in "Higher Learning"), Kate Bosworth (last seen in "Movie 43"), Gina Carano (last seen in "Deadpool"), D.B. Sweeney (last seen in "Taken 2"), Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Stephen Cyrus Sepher, Tyson Sullivan, Christopher Rob Bowen, Lydia Hull (last seen in "Vice" (2015), Tyler Jon Olson (ditto), Scott Herman, Alyssa Julya Smith, Hawn Tran, Colin Lawless (last seen in "The Big Short"), Elizabeth Windley, Ritchie Montgomery (last seen in "The Magnificent Seven"), Han Soto (last seen in "Logan").
RATING: 6 out of 10 SWAT team members
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