(2024) Lift - A Heist Movie that is not of the Highest Quality but Still Pretty Enjoyable

I was kind of looking forward to this latest movie in Netflix which was released yesterday. Being fan of heist genre, obviously I was intrigued with the film and eager to watch it as early as I could. So I watched it last night after returning home from work. All right, I'll just head to it then.

Brief Story Line

Cyrus (Kevin Hart - Me Time, Jumanji: The Next Level etc) was the leader of a heist team that consisted of the pilot Camila (Úrsula Corberó - Snake Eyes: G. I. Joe Origins etc), the hacker Mi-Sun (singer Kim Yoon-ji), the safecracker Magnus (Billy Magnussen - No Time to Die, Tell Me a Story TV series etc), the engineer Luke (Viveik Kalra - Blinded by the Light etc) and Denton the disguise expert (Vincent D'Onofrio - Echo TV series, The Cell etc). Cyrus had been under the radar of Interpol art division agent Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Loki TV series, The Whole Truth  etc) and her boss Huxley (Sam Worthington - Avatar: The Way of Water, The Hunter's Prayer etc).

After a heist, Cyrus and team were planning another major job that was almost impossible and very risky as they had to steal from a dangerous criminal Jorgenson (Jean Reno -  The Doorman, La Femme Nikita etc).

So what would happen to Cyrus and also the Interpol who were trying to capture Jorgenson as well? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, I am a major fan of heist story which made me intrigued in finding out how this movie would fare. Although looking at the lead cast Kevin Hart did raise my eyebrow since he is a comedian and his experience were almost always related to comedy genre. So as I watched cautiously the movie from beginning, I felt unaccustomed seeing him being serious. He did provide a bit of humor in the middle when he was interacting with Denton, while the rest of the film he was more attentive to the heist job and not goofing around like he used to.

Anyway the opening heist job was so so, but the main heist was a lot better but it lacked real intensity and suspense. I was actually impressed with the twist. Even though I thought it would end with something like that, but I did not see one major twist coming. And to be honest, I was quite satisfied with the movie's ending. However, the heist itself might not be as sophisticated as the one in other heist movies of high quality like the famous Ocean's trilogy or even The Italian Job which coincidentally was directed by F. Gary Gray (Men In Black: International, The Fate of the Furious etc), the director of this film. 

Unlike the usual heist story where the members were recruited first then only working on it, this one showed Cyrus were already best of buddies with his team members from the start. There was no background story of why they were so close which for me was not a big deal, but probably very important for some audience. Just like I predicted, this one was heavily trashed by movie critics with very low rating. The cast to me were OK though few of them were not too engaging, aside from perhaps Vincent D'Onofrio who played a unique character and left better impression than the rest. Unfortunately his character was not too useful in the heists, and it seemed he was added just to give some color. Jean Reno too was not very convincing as the main villain, but Sam Worthington was quite suitable as such an annoying character. 

There were a bit of action here which was sufficient for such movie as the main focus was the heist itself. Too bad we did not get to see Úrsula Corberó showed her capabilities like in Money Heist when she played Tokyo. The comedy itself was very scarce and I think this one did not pass the category of heist comedy but rather just a heist movie with touches of humor. Oh it also had some CGI effects which were pretty obvious when seen on TV (same problem with other movies, even those that have large budget). The duration was 104 minutes including closing credits that did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.

Overall to me this was an enjoyable enough heist film. It might not have the highest standard heist but still quite entertaining as long as you are comfortable seeing Kevin Hart as team leader with his style. So if you are expecting an amazing heist movie, then you would not really find it here. But if you lower your expectation and just want to have a bit of fun, then this might satisfy you. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars