BEFORE: Back to work today, after a week of down-time forced by COVID-19, the gift that just keeps on giving. I went back to the office, with my boss out of town that meant there would be just one other person in the animation studio, and that's minimal risk, I suppose. I ate lunch outside so I wouldn't have to take my mask off at all while inside, that's the best I could do. I really had to get out of the house, feeling stir-crazy again and it's too reminiscent of the start of the pandemic, two years ago when I was furloughed for two months. It's still too early to go back to the theater and interact with large numbers of humans, I think I need to give that another week, maybe I won't be coughing as much then. It still could be weeks before I test negative again, but I've got to just be symptom-free to work screenings, so maybe next Thursday?
We were supposed to drive to Atlantic City on Sunday, but now that's out of the question, too, we delayed our planned trip another month, so maybe a few days off in June? Here's hoping.
Dwayne Johnson carries over from "Snitch".
THE PLOT: Two childhood friends plan to rob an armored-car depository, but an NYPD officer stands in their way.
AFTER: Well, I must admit I don't know what to do with this film today, it's just so right in the middle, genre-wise. It's not really funny enough to be a comedy, it's not nearly serious enough to be considered a drama, and there's just barely enough action in it to be thought of as an action movie. So it's somehow all of those things, but not enough of any ONE thing to really stand out, it's square in the middle. Some might say "black comedy" but I think that's a cop-out, it's not really that, either. OK, so it's a heist film, but there are SO many better heist films out there, it's average, at best.
This is apparently based on a true story, the real Chris Potamitis served nine years for being the security guard who looked the other way when $11 million was stolen from an armored car company depository, but this film makes it seem like he was also the mastermind, the guy hired to work as a security guard who noticed where all the gaps in the company's security were, and then decided to take advantage of them. Or, at least mention them to his friends, who took his advice on how to do just that. The real guy appears in interview footage near the end of the film, claiming that he doesn't know where the rest of the money is, although the film seems to have a different take on that. This robbery was even bigger than the Lufthansa heist, which was portrayed in "Goodfellas".
There are so many extraneous characters to keep track of here, a little more focus might have helped. Do we need to know the guys who run the Greek social club, if they had nothing to do with the robbery? Same thing with the Colombians, why are they even THERE? Then in addition to Chris acting as the inside man, setting up the robbery for his buddy Eddie and his mob contacts, there's ANOTHER gang of thieves that's blowing up armored cars, and they ALSO hit the yard on the same night - what are the odds? But they strike first, and since Eddie helps out the police during the first robbery, that speaks to his character and prevents him from being a suspect AT FIRST after the second robbery.
Dwayne Johnson is probably the best, as in most believable, actor in the film. I can totally buy him as a police detective in the early 1980's, and he's just so natural, so comfortable playing a big, tough cop that it's easy to believe that he's not acting at all. The actor who plays Spiro, on the other hand, is so over-the-top that I was aware every single second that this is an actor doing a campy foreign (Greek) mobster. What a shame, The Rock just made him look like a total cartoon character.
There's a failed attempt here to justify robbery, but look, just because life is tough and work is hard and it sometimes feels impossible to get ahead in this crazy economy, that doesn't justify taking $11 million that doesn't belong to you. Nice try, but it's still wrong wrong wrong. OK, so you didn't get accepted to become a cop, there are a few other career paths out there before you have to resort to robbing armored cars. What was wrong with the job as a security guard, apart from the danger, the low pay and the oppressive heat inside the trucks? It's probably worse in jail, you've got to figure.
Watch for an appearance by Rudy Giuliani as a character in this film - this was set back when he was an associate U.S. attorney general based in NYC, before he was the NYC Mayor, and way before he was Trump's personal lawyer. This was also back when he was married to his first wife, who was also his second cousin.
Also starring Liam Hemsworth (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Michael Angarano (last seen in "Haywire"), Paul Ben-Victor (last seen in "Monster" (2018)), Jerry Ferrara (last seen in "Sully"), Greg Vrotsos (last seen in "Middle Men"), Michael Rispoli (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Emma Roberts (last seen in "Paradise Hills"), Nikki Reed (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Wayne Pére (last seen in "Eye for an Eye"), Craig Leydecker (last seen in "Freelancers"), Shenae Grimes (last seen in "Scream 4"), Sharon Angela (last seen in "Broken City"), James Ransone (ditto), Chris Diamantopoulos (last seen in "Red Notice"), Lucky Johnson (last seen in "The Whole Truth"), Gia Mantegna (last seen in "The Frozen Ground"), Roger Guenveur Smith (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Manoli Ioannidis, Ray Gaspard (last seen in "Fire With Fire"), Lydia Hull (last seen in "Escape Plan: The Extractors"), Dan Triandiflou (last seen in "Selma"), Rob Boltin, Isabella Amara (last seen in "The Boss"), Eric Ian with archive footage of Tom Brokaw.
RATING: 4 out of 10 drinks ordered at the club (all at the same time?)
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