STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a low level worker at a casino on a boat, whose daughter is lying seriously ill in a hospital. He tries in vain to ask his boss, and organised crime figure, The Pope (Robert De Niro) for some help, only to be thrown out by The Pope's right hand man Dog (Morris Chestnut.) Vaughn hatches a plan with equally disgruntled employee Cox (Dave Bautista) to rob the vaults of the casino, which predictably doesn't go to plan, and results in a hijack drama on a city bus on the wild roads of Las Vegas.
Heist is another of those DVD premiere films De Niro does sometimes, in between appearances in larger scale productions. He seems to appear in 'pay the bills' films more often these days, ensuring an endless stream of work even at this later stage in his life and career. Good for him if he can still get it, and he can select more flavoursome roles like this. Scott Mann has taken a plot with familiar themes and jumbled it all together to create a superior DVD action film.
An all star cast all function respectively in a multi layered tale that's loaded with more red herrings than you might expect, and pays off more handsomely as a result. At times, it all feels a little too much and the story tries to explore too many angles and whacks us with too many surprises to keep up with, but on the whole, this really is quite a pleasant surprise. ***
Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a low level worker at a casino on a boat, whose daughter is lying seriously ill in a hospital. He tries in vain to ask his boss, and organised crime figure, The Pope (Robert De Niro) for some help, only to be thrown out by The Pope's right hand man Dog (Morris Chestnut.) Vaughn hatches a plan with equally disgruntled employee Cox (Dave Bautista) to rob the vaults of the casino, which predictably doesn't go to plan, and results in a hijack drama on a city bus on the wild roads of Las Vegas.
Heist is another of those DVD premiere films De Niro does sometimes, in between appearances in larger scale productions. He seems to appear in 'pay the bills' films more often these days, ensuring an endless stream of work even at this later stage in his life and career. Good for him if he can still get it, and he can select more flavoursome roles like this. Scott Mann has taken a plot with familiar themes and jumbled it all together to create a superior DVD action film.
An all star cast all function respectively in a multi layered tale that's loaded with more red herrings than you might expect, and pays off more handsomely as a result. At times, it all feels a little too much and the story tries to explore too many angles and whacks us with too many surprises to keep up with, but on the whole, this really is quite a pleasant surprise. ***