American Heist (2015)

Best movie ever!

The first must-see film of the year.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

There's no doubt that this movie is great when it comes to production quality.The plot is quite intricate.The storyline is quite compelling.The camera angles are good.The acting was alright.The storyline was good as well.There is no doubt that this movie is a good movie and is definitely worth your time and money.

American Heist is a low rent Canadian thriller about, you guessed it, a team of robbers teaming up to pull the ultimate in bank heists. It's an overworked genre for sure and the best this B-movie can do is add a couple of recognisable actors to the cast. Sadly, it turns out to be an absolutely brain-dead piece of entertainment thanks to the awful script, which thinks incessant profanity is a good substitute for wit and realism.Hayden Christensen, the ill-fated star of the STAR WARS prequels who quickly faded into obscurity thereafter, is the film's slightly obnoxious lead. Obscuring him at every turn is Adrien Brody, a far distance from his work in Polanski's THE PIANIST. Brody somehow gives a good performance despite his foul-mouthed and moronic dialogue, and he's one of the reasons I kept watching. The actual heist scene isn't too bad, but it's late in the day when it takes place and there's a lot of long-winded relationship stuff and melodrama to get through before that point.

This movie was a let down, and had huge potential. The combination of Hayden and Jordana Brewster's romance could have been something memorable, and Adrien Brody's performance was outstanding. The bond between Adrien and Hayden's character was there, but wasn't executed properly due to the lack of a powerful story. The story and direction of the movie is what drove this movie into the ground. There's barely any motivation for the characters, and recurring cliché and predictable moments. There are a few moments were it is "supposed" to be comical, but due to the lacking nature of the third act, nothing is really funny. However, I'd love to see Hayden, Adrien and Jordana in another film together.

Action? Solid, but nothing special. Heist element? Lacking, but enough for fans of non-elaborate larceny. Neither of those things, however, take center stage for long. The movie wants so desperately to focus on the emotional aspect of the story...on the relationships. The problem is, it introduces these connections and backstories one after another without REALLY giving any depth to a single one. Moments that, if developed properly, could be sincere and truly emotional are rather just "out of left field" scenes that just waste screen time with a story that doesn't make a lot of sense. On a more technical note, it almost gives the feeling that the cinematographer got switched out halfway through the movie. The beginning is filled with erratic zooms and cuts, standard cheap action movie stuff, while the mid-to ending is much more characteristic of...well...a GOOD, professional movie.The drama is definitely the focus of the movie, but even some halfway-decent action and a plot twist or two along the way couldn't save this movie from it's nonsensical emotional story, with some awkward dialogue to boot.