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LIFT (2024) Director: F. Gary Gray Cast: Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Billy Magnussen, Vinent D'Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó, Yun Jee Kim, Viveik Kalra, Sam Worthington, Burn Gorman, Jean Reno, Jacob Batalon MPAA Rating: (for violence and action, suggestive material and some language) Running Time: 1:44 Release Date: 1/12/24 (limited; Netflix) |
Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron Review by Mark Dujsik | January 12, 2024 One
thing can be said of Cyrus (Kevin Hart) and his band of art thieves: They have
developed a brand and make sure to stay on it. That doesn't have to do with
their primary motive, by the way, because the plot of Lift
is all about the team trying to steal, not art, but half a billion dollars in
gold bars. No, their brand is all about trying to make the word "lift"
a thing, as if constantly using the term will somehow set apart this generic
heist story that should be a lot more fun than what we actually get. It's
strange how often screenwriter Daniel Kunka and director F. Gary Gray undercut
whatever potential could be in this material. For starters, the movie stars
Hart, who can be very funny—even when working with bland material—in the
awkward way he exudes but constantly effaces a sense of self-confidence, but
instead of letting the actor—you know—actually be funny in a heist comedy,
this movie makes his character the cool-headed leader of the bunch. Yes,
actors can and should be allowed to branch out from the personas they've
established and what an audience expects from them, but there's also the idea
that a movie should play to its strengths. Casting Hart in a big-budget comedy
and having him play the straight man to other slightly eccentric characters is
forcing an unnecessary weakness on material that can't afford such
miscalculations. It doesn't possess too many potential strengths in the first
place. The
plot is the stuff of any heist narrative, except that the team is already
together, having worked with each other for an unspecified but considerable
length of time, and its members don't really need any introduction or
development because of that fact. All of them are presented to us right away,
with titles announcing their names and their respective roles on the team, and
that's about the extent of that angle. Apart
from some mildly goofy personalities, most of the members are pretty bland, too.
For example, Camila (Úrsula Corberó) is the group's pilot, and although that
apparently means her role in a robbery—sorry, lift—is to operate whatever
vehicle is required for the job, it's quite convenient that stealing—sorry,
lifting—the gold requires her to pilot a private jet. She does so, and that's
about the extent of her character. The
same goes for Mi-Sun (Yun Jee Kim), the team's hacker who gets the fun task of
typing away at a keyboard and making all kinds of technological magic happen on
the fly, and Luke (Viveik Kalra), the group's engineer who builds a GPS-blocking
device and exits the story with as little fanfare as he entered it. The
exceptions are Magnus (Billy Magnussen), an enthusiastically positive locksmith,
and Denton (Vincent D'Onofrio), a sort-of master of disguise who—considering
how laughable his disguises are and how unnecessary he is to the heist (sorry,
again, lift)—almost feels like a pity-hire by Cyrus. With
the team present and barely making an impression, the plot revolves around them
being recruited by Interpol to stop the delivery of 10-tons of gold to a
notorious terrorist (played by Jean Reno), who creates various disasters in
order to profit off of them. Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an operative with
intelligence agency who had a dalliance with Cyrus in the past, easily convinces
Cyrus to help stop the delivery, which means lifting (Got it!) the gold from a
commercial flight while it's in mid-air. Even
though it runs counter to the very little we learn about the team's motives and
methods, that specific premise is at least a bit promising in the kind of
spectacle and clever maneuvering that would be required to pull off such a
robbery (damn, so close to getting the whole "lift" thing
down—sorry, again). There's not much to the process, though, except the usual
and/or predictable—some close calls that make us wonder if the montages of the
team getting precise with timing even matter, three rough landings, plenty of
fights in different spaces of the two planes. Most of the team is sidelined for
the action, as well as some flirtatious banter between Cyrus and Abby, so what's
the point of including so many characters if they're just going to sit and wait
off-screen for most of the plot? The
broad potential of a fun heist can be found in Lift.
The filmmakers, though, don't take advantage of or actively undermine it. Copyright © 2024 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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