Review of Heist (2015) by Ken R — 07 May 2016

"Robert De Niro pulled off a major heist alright, he stole 92 minutes of my life I'll never get back".

DVD Movie Review: Heist.

Date Viewed: December 30 2015.

Directed By Scott Mann.

Written By Stephen Cyrus Sepher and Max Adams.

Starring: Robert De Niro, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gina Carano, Dave Bautista, Morris Chestnut, Kate Bosworth, D.B. Sweeney,.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Stephen Cyrus Sepher and Tyson Sullivan.

What is happening to Robert De Niro? Sure, he continues to work with David O'Russell but he continues to select one terrible script after another. I know you have a whole bunch of IRS taxes to pay but bring your salvaged career back from the dead please! His latest dud is "Heist", an action thriller that's made from spare parts of other movies. It's essentially a rip-off of "Speed" and "The Taking of Pelham 123". This movie is not only a waste of De Niro's talents, it's also a waste of a fine cast which includes Morris Chestnut, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Dave Bautista, Kate Bosworth and Gina Carano.

"Heist" is about a divorced father, Luke Vaughn (Dean Morgan) plotting to rob the casino of his former boss The Pope (De Niro). Luke needs to rob the casino because his daughter is very ill. The money for his daughter's treatment has run dry and Luke has about a week to get the money, if he fails to get the money in time, the doctors will pull the plug on her treatment. Luke pleads with The Pope to give him extra money for his daughter but he refuses to do so. That of course leads Luke to plot a heist on The Pope's casino.

When the heist goes awry, Luke and his accomplice Cox (Bautista) are forced to hijack a bus. The Pope sends out his number two guy "The Dog" (Chestnut) to find Luke and kill him. Meanwhile, Officer Kris (Carano) is handling the negotiations with the robbers and The Pope's daughter, Sydney (Bosworth) wants her father to stop doing his dark deeds and go back to his family. With the police in hot pursuit, Luke becomes desperate for a way out of this situation.

The acting is terrible, the direction is ludicrous and the whole movie itself is direct-to-DVD level of bad. Nicolas Cage and Cuba Gooding, Jr. were always the kings of the Crappy Movie sweepstakes but now they have some new competition, his name is Robert De Niro. This movie has the makings of a great heist thriller but where is the script?

Besides, De Niro already did a superior heist thriller and it was called "Heat".

Routine, dull and flat-out boring, "Heist" is a cheap imitation of far better movies. Robert De Niro pulled off a major heist alright, he stole 92 minutes of my life I'll never get back.