The Pineville Heist

The Pineville Heist, Started off with great vistas and high possibilities, decent story line, but is basically a long winded College style production. The lighting was good. The sound was good. The acting was mediocre. Had a story line that was dragged out Way too long with the chase scene in the high school. An honest grade would be a high B to a low A. I have seen worse. But my $28 dollar admission fee for my wife and I was $20 too much. There are way too many good movies to see, than to spend your time seeing this one. The best acting was from the deputy sheriff and he was knocked out for half the movie. I did like the acting from the principal Theo.

Terrible acting, the script is horrible. I was literally laughing at the two bank robbers burying the money because of the poor writing. Only reason I gave it two stars was for the nice cinematography.

Was lucky enough to attend a screening of Lee Chambers' "The Pineville Heist" last night. It's the story of a high school kid who stumbles onto bank robbers burying their stolen cash in the woods, and then his life is turned upside down when he decides to find the money and take it. You should check it out. It's extremely well-shot and obvious that Lee Chambers has serious directing chops. What I also find impressive about it is that Chambers produced it on his own with minimal funding. I've always been impressed by indie filmmakers who against all odds manage to shoot, edit and release a feature film. It's a herculean effort and Chambers deserves applause for that alone. You'd never know from the look of The Pineville Heist that it was made on an indie-sized budget. It looks great. It's a fun movie and it makes me wonder how cool a movie Chambers could make if someone were wise enough to give this guy a few million bucks!

The acting in this movie is atrocious, particularly the teenage lead. It sounded like he had marbles in his mouth the whole time. The story was boring and predictable. The visuals and music were very good.

Pineville Heist is surely a movie to watch. Like many productions, there are issues here and there. Some ADR doesn't match up, some sound effects needed more altering to fit the environment, and there are some VFX issues. But that doesn't make this a bad film. It has a logical plot that takes the audience from point A to B and it does it effectively with good acting, good camera work, and overall good production value. Is it a movie that I can watch and make fun of with my friends? Yeah, but it's a movie I can also watch seriously. But everything I have listed are all present in Hollywood level films, and that's what makes me take this film serious.

The part that I would be very critical as an audience member is one part where the bad guy and someone hiding are in the same room together. It's builds tension, but it needed to learn when not to play music. It was a tense scene, and what would have made the hair stand on the back of your neck would be silence... Just the sounds of the guy walking, sounds of the person hiding trying not to breath, and just hearing the room. That would put us there, make us feel how they feel. But instead that experience is taken away with music.

But despite all of that, I think it's a great film. The part that makes me laugh is throughout the film a poster on the wall pops up at almost ironic times... a simple poster that says "Make Healthy Choices".