Time: 107 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Cruelty, offensive language, sexual themes, violence
Cast:
Kevin Hart as Cyrus Whitaker
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Abby Gladwell
Sam Worthington as Huxley
Vincent D’Onofrio as Denton
Úrsula Corberó as Camila
Billy Magnussen as Magnus
Yun Jee Kim as Mi-Sun
Viveik Kalra as Luke
Jean Reno as Lars Jorgenson
Director: F. Gary Gray

I heard of Lift, a heist movie with a great cast which was released on Netflix earlier this year. Based on the negative reactions I didn’t expect much going in, but I assumed that I would at least find it to be a fun if disposable action comedy flick. Turns out the overall reception was correct.

Lift is yet another heist movie which takes from far better heist movies. While those kinds of movies are usually still fun, Lift was incredibly generic and uninteresting, with a recycled plot which has very few surprises. It’s quite a forgettable film too, the most memorable part of the movie is that it opens with the theft of an NFT, which only signaled to me that I was not going to like the 100 or so minutes. It is genuinely impressive for a movie to feel immediately dated in the year that it was released. Even the attempts at humour didn’t work. The first half which focuses on the central team preparing for the heist is quite dull, not helped by the unbalanced pacing. It does pick up a little bit in the second half, which focuses on the actual heist and contains most of the over the top action. The twists and turns don’t make much sense, but I was willing to go along with them and not think about them too much, it would’ve been a much more negative experience otherwise.

While Lift’s stacked cast of talented actors deliver decent jobs in their parts, they are largely wasted here. Kevin Hart plays the protagonist as the leader of a team of thieves, in a far less comedic role than one would expect from him. While one could commend him for branching out, he feels very miscast here, and his performance and character comes across as rather bland. The rest of the cast in Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Worthington, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ursula Corbero, Billy Magnussen, Kim Yun-jee, Viveik Kalra and Jean Reno are fine enough.

F. Gary Gray has directed some good movies in the past, but this might be the worst work I’ve seen from him. The action is average to above average (but does at least get somewhat over the top in the third act) and the visuals, CGI and green screen are bad and fake looking.

Despite a stacked cast, Lift is an incredibly generic, forgettable, and middling heist comedy.