The Heist (2000)

Such a frustrating disappointment

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Great action, cute dose of comedy, great storytelling, everybody played their roles really well and it was an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes. I bought the DVD to see Luke Perry, I was pleasantly surprised to see David Faustino, another fave, and I enjoyed each character. The writer, director, and producer should be proud of what they put together, especially with the obviously limited budget. I don't recall ever watching a made-for-DVD B-movie before, but this one was well worth it. Lots of fun. I figured this movie would be junk, but each character managed to portray their own stories and characters really well. They made you care about them and made you want to see them and how they respond to situations. It's funny, because they managed to do that more than many Hollywood Blockbusters can sometimes. And I really want to think that I am unbiasedly reviewing this, but I guess I can relate to four of the characters. I relate to Mo, as my name is Mo, I like music,and although I am capable of making good money, I can't work at a job I don't like, even if it means living in a gutter! Same situation! I feel like Perry's character as I feel I deserve some good after all the stuff I've been through. I can relate to the bald guy as I am religious and do things against my better conscious judgement all the time. And I am like David Faustino's character because I'm short, I try to fit in by being cool but wouldn't harm a fly unless I'm pushed into a situation where I have to, then it begins to become natural, as it did him. I feel these are general ways anyone can relate to any of these characters and that's why I think the movie is so good, it has so much of us in these ridiculous characters. Well done.

I watched this movie at least five times (yes, five times!) and I want more of it. Like a previous reviewer opined, the more I return to watch this movie, the more I liked it.This has got to be one of the best known examples of why people who write reviews must breathe in deeply and exhale slowly before they assume the role of butcher working on someone else's hard work. Those who expected gratuitous violence can be excused for their disappointments.Forget the theme of the movie and take a lateral view on some of the smaller characters portrayed for a second. Consider the dialogue between the Asian-looking female bar tender to the character of Richmond Arquette. His response is so, so true concerning men who find themselves down who fall in love with well off ladies in the hope of having a place to sleep. Yes, the abandoned warehouse he sleeps in is better than taking advantage of a woman who expected love for the sake of hitching a ride to comfort. Also consider the impulsive and impetuous character of De'aundre Bonds against that of Robert Wisdom. Lots of funny dialogue there. Then again think of the scene of an exasperated character played by Ice T shooting at the armoured car on finding that their plan was increasingly attracting audience.Forget the bad reviews. If you found yourself with nowhere to go on a rainy Saturday morning, watch this movie and reflect on the ambitions of these characters and you will see the beauty of this movie.

This movie is the perfect example where a decent plotline featuring good actors can be totally butchered by terrible scripting and bad dialogue. While the premise of a straight forward armoured car robbery and the subsequent battle for the spoils is (in my humble opinion) a solid storyline, the execution of the storyline in this movie is so bad as to be almost unwatchable. This is obviously a made-for-TV movie (the DVD features 4x3 format and stereo sound only, no widescreen or 5.1), but manages to fall short of even that benchmark. The characters are (for the most part) ridiculous, the dialog extremely corny, and the details of the storyline so bad they would appear to have been written by a ten year old. The thing that lured me to hire this piece of rubbish was the R rating - I was expecting some violent and graphic acts of carnage. But even the action sequences in this movie are poor - one notably featuring a bizarre looping of footage after someone is shot. Whether this was an editing glitch or a failed attempt to heighten the dramatic impact of the sequence is open for debate. In short, avoid this film like the proverbial plague. Do yourself a favour, and hire The Salton Sea instead.

This is yet another sharp, stylish genre piece from the talented and always underappreciated Kurt Voss, a skilled director as at home in the world of low-budget exploitation as in that of character-driven art house work. Here Voss uses the limitations of the low-budget genre world as assets, creating a work of energy and distinction marked by the same kind of witty dialogue as his collaborations with Allison Anders or his underrated HORSEPLAYER. Whereas most of the straight-to-video and cable world is a vast wasteland of clunky, empty-headed junk, Voss is continuing in the tradition of people like Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, and Joe Dante, who in the seventies used exploitation films as vehicles for intelligent, personal entertainments. Like all of Kurt Voss's work from BORDER RADIO to SUGAR TOWN, THE HEIST is a great deal of fun and highly recommended.