AMERICAN HEIST (2014)

 

American Heist (2014)

Summary: James owes his life to his older brother, Frankie after taking the rap for a crime they committed together. While Frankie served time, James worked to turn his life around, got a steady job and began courting his former girlfriend Emily. Now, Frankie is released and back on the streets with no money and no place to go.

I came across this a few weeks ago and thought it seemed like a pretty good movie. So it was just my luck that it was given to me for review. And after watching it, I'm happy I didn't buy it when I saw it the first time.

 

 

The performance by most of the actors was the one main upside to this movie. Despite what I have seen in some other reviews, I'm gonna disagree with them and say that I thought Adren Brody did a phenomenal job. Ht plays Frankie, the brother who is just released from prison. Everyone who has ever seen and Adrien Brody before knows that he does not have the build of someone who just survived 10 years in prison. That comes into the picture a little bit later in the movie. Hayden Christensen also turned in a good performance in his role as James, the brother who is trying to go legit but is gets pulled back in yet again. Jordana Brewster better have turned in a good performance since the character she played in this was essentially Mia Torretto (Fast and the Furious).

 

 

That's three solid acting performances that did everything they could to save this movie. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to fight through. The movie is suppose to be about a heist. They heist is the last 20 minutes of the movie. The whole beginning of it is the family struggle between Frankie and James, the growing love story between James and Emily, and occasionally the planning of this big heist. The movie was all drama, whether it was the good kind or the bad; and their were quite a bit of wholes throughout the whole thing. The scenes that were suppose to make characters seem more hardened and intimidating were more comical than anything based solely on the way the script was written.

 

 

 According to the IMDB page, this is technically suppose to be an action movie. So where was the action. Thee was nothing leading up to the heist and even during the heist, the action was scarce. Two of the guys get away and apparently that led to the whole SWAT team chasing them on foot. The dialogue between these guys was just a joke. It's not meant to make the viewer laugh, but I'd be willing to bet you did anyway. The fate of the characters can be predicted by the 30 minute mark at the latest and I have never been a fan of the “walk off into the sunset” endings. With all this time making a movie that doesn't have a lot going for it, the least the could have done would have been to give it a definitive ending. So many questions were developed throughout the movie and none of them were answered.

 

 

If you happen to be walking down any store that sells movies and you walk past a display that has American Heist for purchase, do you yourself a favor and keep walking. It's not worth spending money on. If you are a fan of one of these actors and want to visit them, it's on Netflix. I strongly recommend watching it there because it's not going charge you anywhere.
 

          

reviewed by Bobby