Dead Heist (2007)

Boring

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Everyone knows the plot so I digress:I liked this movie. For one thing it followed the golden rule of all film making. "I wonder what happens next." And it did.The writing and the characterizations were well done and not like the robot like characters in 99% of zombie films. Lighting great. scenes great. Location great. The beginning hood scenes of the robbery were cool. They showed character development, believable characters...often missing in zombies movies. In short it started as a real movie, not schlock. So tired of zombies attacking 1 minute after the movie credits start and continuing for 90 more minutes with a 'who cares' about the victims.Dead Heist is a refreshing change from other zombie movies and has an interesting plot, characters and execution. Looking for more films from writer and director.I was wondering why the government dude was letting zombies in, and he told why..to capture them and dispatch them once and for all. Dead Heist is an enjoyable movie experience and breaks the mold.If movies weren't all based on comic books today this would have been in theaters. At least at the drive-ins.Rating: Cool.

The opening shots promised Zombies, the first thing to upset me was that I had to wait for nearly 45 minutes to actually see zombie's lurching into shots and causing mayhem. Basically some stereotypically gangster geezer (Ackson played by D.J. Naylor) wants out of a gang, but he is made to do "one more job" for the crime lord who seems to have his own empire including a clothing line (adverts and slogans for 'Avirex' are everywhere like a product placement parody) and a lesbian porn factory. The job is to check up on and supervise another crew who want to rob a bank (the four man crew is headed up by Brandon Xavier's Ski character). Upon Ackson arriving he finds the crew have changed their plans because they are inexperienced and impatient idiots; instead of the robbery being planned for a day or two they decide to rob it whilst scoping it out. Things go wrong (as with all rush jobs like this), cops, security and patrons are threatened and in some instances shot in cold blood, the silent alarm is triggered and a police/SWAT team turn up and surround the bank. To make things worse their get-away driver panics and flees the scene with the get-away car!! Despite Ackson trying to put some controls in place and have a smooth robbery Ski has caused mayhem and there is no apparent escape. Scene set, queue the Zombies….. These zombies aren't regular zombies, they are vampiric zombies, this is actually explained by Hunter (Big Daddy Kane) who advises they are a result of cross contamination of mutagens - of course they are. The vampire-zombies break through the police line and begin to infiltrate the bank queueing up Hunter's arrival. Hunter is an ex-government agent and he wants to save the handful of people who have so far survived but they have to listen and follow orders, which of course has been proved as difficult already with Ski not listening to Ackson. The group manage to slay an awful lot of vampire-zombies leaving blood splashed everywhere but who will survive and what will be left of them?This film thought it was "Boyz in da Hood" crossed with "Shawn of the Dead" but wasn't close to being as good as either. It felt like a lot of style over content at times as the story was fairly weak, it just seemed like a lot of peacocking to prove how cool the 'gang/thug life is". There were times where the narrative/dialogue was too 'street' and it was difficult to understand what the actors where talking about unless you have a degree in gang thug-o-nomics, even after watching lots of typical 'street/gang' films there were some things I was baffled by - none the less I figured it out eventually despite the script calling for a curse word apparently every two words. Saying that though I have seen a lot worse films, this film didn't try to be big - it's not like there was a big budget and they blew it trying to make something epic. It's more that there was little to no budget and the production crew just wanted to make something fun - in that sense it succeeded, even with the sometimes difficult dialogue. The biggest let down for me was the zombies, Bo Webb the directory obviously wanted to combine random film folklores and bring something new and original with these vampire- zombies but at times it was too mixed up. Things like the vampire- zombies only coming out at night on a full moon, the varying ways to kill them, the biology and strengths/ weakness of them. As mentioned the zombies didn't get enough screen time and rather than being a threat they just came across as mildly annoying.The big question then, did I enjoy the film? I guess I didn't hate it, but that doesn't necessarily confirm that I enjoyed it does it. I tolerated the film and it wasn't a waste of 90 minutes of my life, but likewise I wont be writing home to tell everybody to watch it immediately.

Story Synopsis: Ex-soldier Ackson is getting tired of the babysitting jobs his boss, the rap mogul Hustle, gives him, intending to quit for a better lifestyle. Hustle agrees, promising to give Ackson one last job. Meanwhile, a group of young hoods are planning a heist, working on a tip from an imprisoned uncle who was a master bank robber, targeting a banking depot in a small town south of Miami. They approach Hustle for support, Hustle agreeing to the deal on two conditions – they must give him a sizable cut of the profits & they must take Ackson along for insurance. Arriving in the town, Ackson tells the gang to lie low in a motel while he cases the bank. But the hoods, being the impatient boneheads they are, hit the bank while Ackson is still inside. As is expected with all rush jobs, the plan goes awry with the robbers shooting a cop in cold blood & their getaway driver panics & flees with the car. But that is not the worst of it – once night falls, an army of the undead stages an assault on the town.Film Analysis: Sometimes you just don't know which direction a genre will go. After coming back to life in the early 2000s, the zombie film has produced some pretty wild combinations. There have been films about zombie soldiers, zombie cops, zombie vigilantes & so on. But until 2007 there has never been a film about zombies & hip-hop. Before I continue, I must admit that I'm not a big fan of the whole hip-hop / rap scene. In saying that, I don't mean the gritty urban poetry of the late Tupac Shakur or even Eminem's clever self-depreciating lyrics. I mean the whole gangster rap genre, with various untalented rappers trying to glorify a life where women are treated as objects, pimping, illegal substances & drive-by shootings are seen as fashionable things to do & so on. Here's a tip for those hip-hop stars: if you want to make it big, try holding down a good blue-collar job & support your various families by renouncing gang life & stop treating women as sex objects – they are human beings too.Dead Heist is a rather strange mix of horror film & crime flick, with a group of bank robbers trapped in a bank with an army of zombie-like vampires roaming outside. As far as plot goes, it is really an uncredited adaptation of the classic novel I Am Legend marketed for the hip-hop crowd. In that regard it is hard to fault. But what really stands out about the film is the fact that horror & hip-hop don't go too well together. One of the most notorious attempts in this field was Da Hip Hop Witch, an extremely infantile filmic experiment where a bunch of rappers (including a young Eminem) would tell off-the-cuff improvised stories about encountering a witch, their stories being completely nonsensical & unintentionally hilariously inept. And the less said about the later Leprechaun sequels, the better.While its marketing might be hard to fault, what makes Dead Heist strictly a mediocre film is that the film doesn't do anything other than to put a cast of young hoods in a tough situation & have them deal with it solely by acting tough, shooting at anything that moves & overusing F-words. There is no innovation here (despite the novelty value of the plot) or even cohesive filmmaking, just a routine zombie film.Which brings me to the zombies. The creatures shown here are not exactly zombies – instead they are generic undead. Their traits are quite interesting – the creatures come out at night & only on a new moon; they can only be stopped by a shot or blow to the heart – but don't make any sense biologically. Particularly their weakness, which brings them closer to being vampires than zombies. Director Bo Webb mishandles the action scenes a few times, most notably in the climax where the survivors take on the dozens of 'zombies' by shooting their pistols wildly & swiping away with their knives – this is probably the least convincing (& most flatly directed) human versus zombie fight in the whole of the 2000s.On the acting front, the cast give some okay performances, in particular D.J. Naylor, who manages to get the mix of hard-headed professionalism & perpetually-annoyed irritableness down perfectly, making a pretty good hero (for a white boy!). Traci Dinwiddie makes a nice heroine as the female deputy while Zach Hanner makes the most of his limited role as the bank manager. As for the black members of the cast, E-40 does the usual stereotypical role of the rap mogul who plans criminal acts while making lesbian porn on the side while rapper Big Daddy Kane actually does a good job as the ex-government mercenary who has hunted the creatures since the beginning.

Dead Heist starts in Miami as ex-marine Ackson (D.J. Naylor) becomes fed up with his job as a bodyguard for big time gangster Hustle (E-40) & wants out, meanwhile four of Hustle's minor drug dealers named Ski (Brandon Xavier), Trey (Michael Braxton), Bone (Chris Bailey) & Malcolm (Dominic L. Santana) also want to better themselves. Malcolm speaks to his uncle (Charlie Lucas) about robbing a bank & before you know it the four friends have a plan to make their fortunes. However they need guns & go to Hustle to ask for help, he agrees but only if he has a cut of the loot & if Ackson goes along to watch out for his interests & make sure the job isn't messed up. Reluctantly the five drive to the small town of Maysville where the well stocked bank sits, even though Ackson wants to plan the job properly the other four decide to go in all guns blazing & after the alarm is tripped they become trapped inside the bank with the local police outside, but that is the least of their problems as when night falls cannibalistic zombies flood the town killing & eating anyone they catch...Directed by Bo Webb this horror comedy crime caper mixture reminds of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) in the structure of the script where the opening is purely a crime caper as a robbery goes wrong before taking a very different direction & turning into a horror film as the zombies attack our trapped protagonist's. To be fair to Dead Heist after I realised it was an 'urban' film & maybe an attempt at a modern Blaxploitation flick I shuddered at how bad I expected it to be but I actually thought it was quite good, Dead Heist is no masterpiece by any means but for what it is I found it fairly entertaining & at just over 70 minutes long at least it's short enough not to outstay it's welcome or become annoying. The obvious slant towards black culture & reference & hip-hop jive talking profanity laden dialogue is apparent & while I must admit to not understanding everything that was being said (I speak the Queen's English...) I did find some of it amusing but it's not all good news. Far from it. There's nothing new here, the lack of any big set-pieces or significant gore doesn't help & I suspect much of the film was dictated by the low budget which means the most unsecure bank ever, it's touching to see all the zombies suddenly stop attack Ackson at the end while he comforts his mate who has been bitten & we never get to see any of the town or it's people. Then there are the zombies which are never really explained beyond they escaped from a Government laboratory (yes, that old cliché again...) after a failed experiment or why they can only be killed by being shot through the heart. Overall I thought Dead Heist was quite punchy & quite amusing at times with a likable bunch of character's but it's low budget origins hinder it & it can't quite decide what it wants to be & as a result is a bit of everything.Dead Heist also looks quite good considering it's low budget origins, there's no shaky hand-held camcorder crap or machine gun editing which I hate so much if it's overused & it looks a step-up from the average television film. There's not a lot of gore here, there's some blood splatter & a few bit wounds but nothing else of note. There's a little nudity & a brief lesbian scene. There does seem to be some blatant product placement here as well with virtually all the character's at the start wearing Averix shirts.The IMDb says that Dead Heist had a budget of about $250,000 which sounds about right, filmed in Wilmington in North Carolina. The acting varies, most of it enthusiastic with the bland D.J. Naylor the worst of the leads. Rappers E-40, Bone Crusher & Big Daddy Kane feature although thankfully their music doesn't.Dead Heist wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be, it wasn't great but it has it's amusing moments & the mixture of genres is a little random but gives it a bit of variety. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either, a commendable effort.