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Heist
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (11th January 2016). |
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The Film
 Once the heir apparent of Pope's (Once Upon a Time in America's Robert De Niro) riverboat casino, Luke Vaughn (Supernatural's Jeffrey Dean Morgan) now works the roulette wheel on the casino floor after walking away from The Pope's more nefarious activities when he got married and had a daughter. Now he is estranged from his wife and his daughter Riley (Elizabeth Windley) is in the hospital with cancer and in need of a life-saving operation. When Riley's doctor tells Luke that his daughter will be bumped from the list unless he can pay the mounting hospital bills by the end of the week, Luke promises to have the money by the deadline. Co-worker Cox (Spectre's Dave Bautista) has been observing the patterns during his short tenure and has correctly gleaned that the casino is a front for money laundering, but Luke would rather swallow his pride and begs Pope for a $300,000 loan since "stealing from The Pope is suicide." When Pope, still resentful that Luke walked away from his business, throws him out and his second-in-command Prince (The Call's Morris Chestnut) fires him, Luke not only reconsiders Cox's plan, he takes over the planning since he knows the layout and the access codes (which are sure to change soon). With Cox's buddies Dante (One More Round's Stephen Cyrus Sepher) providing the guns and strung-out Mickey (Demonic's Tyson Sullivan) providing the getaway car. The heist predictably goes bad with Mickey speeding off and Cox and a wounded Dante tagging along on what was supposed to be Luke's innocuous getaway via transport bus #671. With patrol cop Kris (Haywire's Gina Carano) in pursuit, the robbers take the passengers hostage. While Cox threatens the driver (Taken 2's D.B. Sweeney) and passengers – including a pregnant girl (Escape Plan's Lydia Hull), a runaway boy (Colin Lawless), a survivalist (Precious Cargo's Christopher Rob Bowen), a veterinary student (Couples Retreat's Alyssa Julya Smith), and a beaver-suited mascot (The Prince's Tyler Jon Olson) – Luke tries to keep things calm and convince Kris over the cellphone that he can guarantee everyone's safety if she can clear the police barricade that has already been set up on the road ahead. Trusting his intentions, Kris rams the barricade so the bus can get through. Expecting to be suspended or fired by her captain (The Mechanic's Lance E. Nichols), Kris and the captain are shocked when Detective Marconi (Saved by the Bell's Mark-Paul Gosselaar) show up under orders from the Commissioner and pulls Kris back onto the pursuit because of her rapport with one of the hijackers. With fuel running low on the bus – pointed towards Texas and a buddy of Cox's who has a private plane – and Dante in need of serious medical attention, Kris has to convince Luke to convince Cox that they need to make some concessions. Unbeknownst to them, Pope is eager not to have the stolen laundered money connect him to the city's crime families and has more operatives behind the scenes than Prince who is racing to beat the bus to its end destination. Originally titled Bus 671, the misleading Heist title seems to have been chosen to subconsciously link the film to the earlier De Niro heist hit Heat, although the heist occupies the last five minutes of the first act and its suspense is further shortchanged by being intercut as a flash-forward with narration by Vaughn during the planning meeting with Cox, Dante, and Mickey in place of a sustained suspense and action set-piece. Although the bulk of the film's remainder is a hostage situation on a bus, one almost expects that the film will dump the bus for another siege situation during the third act; but it instead throws in just about everything but the kitchen sink with snipers and SWAT team operatives easily taken out and ejected from the bus like insects splattering the windshield (especially after Luke has drawn the line with Luke at killing a cop). However contrived some of the plot twists are, the script's rough edges, apparent gaffes, and plot holes mostly resolve themselves upon reflection. As much as we want to root for Luke, his ability to instill trust and faith in the hostages as well as his fate at the end do stretch credibility. Morgan is a likable lead but Bautista's and Chestnut's characters are rather flat villains, although Sepher gets a grace note before his character exits. De Niro virtually "phones in" much of his performance (seemingly for the perk of post-coitally "vaping" in bed with ChromiumBlue.com's Summer Altice). The single scene featuring Pope and his daughter (21's Kate Bosworth) is memorable not because of the intended poignancy and what it should do for Pope's character arc, but more so because it stops the action dead when a couple more scenes of Pope trying to reach his estranged daughter might have conveyed the same character growth. A through-and-through B-picture (or "popcorn movie" as the filmmakers refer to it on the commentary) in its eagerness to thrill, Heist is actually quite entertaining even if it seems like the wrong people appear as though they are slumming. 
Video
Shot with the Red Camera and Hawk Scope anamorphic lenses, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 encode does what it can with film that makes deliberate use of lens flare and plenty of flaring light sources during the night scenes and a high contrast bright sun/deep shadow look for the daytime exteriors (perhaps as much a stylish choice as a way to draw attention away from some CGI and ropey stunts). 
Audio
The sole audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that becomes more conventionally active during the bus scenes but spends much of its early third with an emphasis on dialogue while the score dominates the sound design. Optional subtitles are available in English, English SDH, and Spanish. 
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by director Scott Mann, actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and writer Max Adams that is lively and jokey yet attentive to the onscreen action. Mann and Adams recall having only two weeks to re-write actor Sepher's script, and Morgan is able to join in since they ended up continuing to rewrite scenes on a daily basis during the shooting. As they discuss the ins-and-outs of the seventeen day shoot, one cannot help but admire the film for being as entertaining as it is and accepting it as a "popcorn movie." The deleted/extended scenes (4:08) are rather inconsequential, including an introduction for the guy in the beaver suit, a bit more backstory during the scene with Pope and Luke in the office, and an extended buildup to Marconi's comeuppance.  "“The Making of Heist”" featurette (15:11) features the Scott Mann (The Tournament), co-writer Max Adams (Extraction) and actor/original writer Sepher, as well as the rest of the principal cast who offer the usual talking head remarks. Morgan and Bosworth discuss the paternal relationship the Pope character has for theirs in a bit more depth (which might suggest that more has been left on the cutting room floor), but there is only so much they can do to promote the film without giving away twists (Gosselaar is particularly reluctant to give away details about his character). Also included are short Cast and Crew Interviews with director Scott Mann (7:29), co-writer Max Adams (6:11), as well as actors Jeffrey Dean Morgan (4:26), Kate Bosworth (4:43), Mark-Paul Gosselaar (3:35), Gina Carano (4:09), Morris Chestnut (2:34), and D.B. Sweeney (4:37). These are actually the talking head pieces extracted in the making-of featurette (presumably we see everything De Niro provided in the featurette), but they do include additional little tid-bits. Both Carano and Sweeney refer to the film under its more appropriate shooting title Bus 671, and Adams reveals that he had been brought on by the Weinstein Company to script a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai that fell through before he was hired to re-write Heist. The film's trailer (2:25) is also included along with start-up trailers (also available as previews).
Overall
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