The biggest cash heist in US history took place in 1982 when US$11 million was stolen from an armored car depot. This 2013 movie adaption by director Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing your Saints, Fighting, The Son of No One) is his fifth film—but his first without Channing Tatum. The leads this time around are Liam Hemsworth, who assumes the role of robber Chris Potamitis, and Dwayne Johnson playing detective James Ransone. On the poster you may also notice Emma Roberts, who gets about five minutes of screen time, and whose fleeting and insignificant performance just about sums up this movie as a whole.
Chris Potamitis lives with his migrant Greek family in New York City, hanging around with fast-talking troublemaker Eddie (Michael Angarano). Chris applies for the police academy, but, due to some unmentioned incident involving the two at a Black Sabbath concert, is disqualified, leading him to take employment as a security guard at the armored truck company Empire. While on duty, he is attacked and his partner, Tony (Michael Rispoli), shot dead. Later, Chris nicks a few rolls of greenbacks, some of which he hands over to Tony’s widow. When Eddie gets a whiff of this easy money, he begins to pressure Chris into pulling off a heist of their own. The Italian mob and the police, led by detective Ransone, enter the scene and the cat-and-mouse game begins.
There’s not one smart thing about this film. Its early, potent build-up is shattered by cookie-cutter tough-guy dialogue from Johnson’s detective Ransone, the logorrhea from Eddie, and Liam Hemsworth’s quiet Chris, who falls flat with his innocent criminal, good boy act. As if the banter wasn’t bad enough, the plot has been so dumbed down that the real Mr. Potamitis had to come out in his own defense, saying that history’s biggest heist was more complex than what’s portrayed here on the big screen.
Dull and painfully unoriginal, this is an hour-and-a-half of your life better spent elsewhere. Even fans of Liam Hemsworth and Dwayne Johnson will be better served by just staring at the movie poster for 90 minutes.
