Last Thursday, there was a new movie premiered in Indonesia which was not the blockbuster category. It was rather odd, seeing since the month of May would usually be the time for Hollywood to release their mega blockbuster movies. As the movie did not have major publication, I think there was not a lot of people were aware of it. Even my wife and I were a little bit doubtful of whether or not to see this. But yesterday, I finally decided to see the film while waiting for a very highly anticipated movie of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which would be premiering this week. My wife was kind enough to accompany me seeing this, though she was not really sure about the quality. Anyway, let us move on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
A group of dangerous military soldiers led by Tre (Ori Pfeffer - Bullet Head etc) was planning to do a heist from a small town bank in the US. These people were being hunted by an Interpol agent named Sophie (Alexandra Dinu) who had prior experience in dealing with their crimes. On the day of the heist, Tre and his team members with heavy military equipments, rushed into the bank taking hostages of the employees and customers inside.
Meanwhile a retiring police officer Mike Chandler (Nicolas Cage - Face/Off, 8MM etc) and his partner Steve (Dwayne Cameron) were given extra duty to have a high school student named Kenny (Michael Rainey Jr. - Barbershop: The Next Cut, Power TV series etc) to ride along in their patrol car. Steve was also married to Mike's daughter Lisa (Sophie Skelton).
When Mike & Steve were doing their usual patrolling, Mike noticed a vehicle parking outside the bank and this would be the start of a suspenseful bank heist that would rock the small town.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie actually started off quite brightly with heavy shoot out that was quite intense and the bad guys were shown as really ruthless experienced team of soldiers. But then the movie pace dropped very slow when it was introducing the characters who would be affected by the bank heist. It certainly did not help when these characters were portrayed by people who seemed to be unable to act naturally (read: the acting was very bad). So after a rather painful 20 minutes or so to look at these bad acting, the pace picked up very fast when the heist was starting.
This was when the movie suddenly became interesting. The action sequence was pretty well made and the explosion effects, the gun shooting scenes were surprisingly very good. I think the movie's highlight point was the heist itself. But then came the finale which was rather disappointing. After a heavy build up (which also included some dramatic & touching moment that affected my wife), it felt really anticlimactic. I was hoping for a much better finale scene than that, but probably the director wanted to show something different. Even my wife and I were debating of the logic behind such ending of the heist. I totally blame the director & writer York Alec Shackleton for making this.
Before I saw this movie, I was actually looking for more information of it. However, there was not a lot of info available. The synopsis in the Indonesian cinema 21 website only mentioned that the movie was inspired from actual event (though there was no such thing mentioned in the beginning of the film). I also waited through the whole end credit scene hoping to see hints/scenes of the possible actual events information, but to not such luck. Perhaps it was really inspired by a true event, coz someday, somewhere, there might really be a bank heist of this nature. By the way, the title of the movie 211 (two eleven) was actually referring to the police code of Bank Robbery.
Overall, this movie was something that could have been a lot of better if the supporting actors & actresses were able to do a more decent acting, plus giving a better deserved ending of the heist. If you ask me though, the movie was more disappointing to me personally because of those points. I expected something better for a B class movie, but unfortunately I was not having the best moments when watching this film. It is certainly not something that I would recommend to see in the theater. I actually felt pretty bad for asking my wife to accompany me see this one. Definitely best to see this on TV or via online streaming when it is available in the near future if you still want to see it.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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