El Robo más Grande de la Historia

I'm a fan of real stories turned into movie when they revolve about an epic robbery and those robbed aren't worth of pity. This seemed to fit the genre. I didn't know what to expect from this, but the Rock is in it, so I thought, at least will be entertaining as he is the quintessential hero.

The film is not dreadful, but it is kinda mediocre. Bad direction, bad production, mediocre acting, poor dialogues, bad tempo, lack of climax, lack of tension, lack of humour, lack of proper drama, lack of everything that makes this sort of movie interesting.

The movie is supposed to happen in the 1980s, but it looks more like the 70s, regarding, dress style, make up, hair, and overall looks. If you don't get something as basic right, how do you pretend us to believe the rest?

The acting is uneven. The Rock underwhelms here, probably because the role doesn't suit his style, and he is not a proper actor, but more an action hero and I am OK when he does those sort of movies. Liam Hemsworth has potential, but he needs a bit of time off and focus on developing himself as an actor, because his lack of dramatic register was painful to watch here and not even the accent was believable; he is miscast here, and the film doesn't make him any favor or push his career forward, quite the contrary. Three people stand out to me in this film: Arangano as the most annoying Eddie, Ben-Victor as the good Chris' father, and Rispoli as the normal-guy Toni. Other supporting actors are OK in their respective roles as not much is expected from them and they are stereotypical baddies.

It is a pity that despite the story being really interesting a priori, this people wasted millions of dollars to produce a B movie. If I had had to pay for this, I would be furious.

If a movie doesn't entertain you, doesn't make you laugh, doesn't move you, doesn't have a decent settings, or the right actors for the characters, well, why bother?

To be honest the majority of this movie is the two main characters cussing and fighting. While it's cool that the plot is based on a true story, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The acting is okay, but the characters are annoying. The plot itself, wanders around a lot and doesn't seem to have a clear direction. Then the movie just kind of ends.

When I saw the rating on IMDb it kinda put me off watching this film. Usually anything that rates lower than a 6.0 on here is actually pulp, IMDb works great that way. Pulp is OK every once in a while so I still sometimes watch some of those films if I like the cast or the storyline, however I usually draw the line at anything below 5.0 cause it's mostly just a complete waste of time.

Made an exception for this though after seeing the cast and reading the story outline, I thought how bad can it be, so I decided to find out.

I was pleasantly surprised, at no point was this film hard to watch or boring to me, just an OK thriller like many others that is worth watching even if it's not blowing your mind away. I would say it deserves about the same rating as 'man on a ledge' or 'alphadog' or 'savages'.

Anyway maybe there's some hate in some of these reviews because of some cast members or because it could have been better (it could) or because it sometimes gives you an atmosphere like your watching the departed, however then the film isn't nearly as good or it uses historical cues like argo but it's not as good as that either...all that doesn't take away from my opinion that it's still an interesting story to watch with generally decent acting.

7 out of 10 to boost the rating a bit, would give it more like a 6.5 myself.

The story has a very nice and potential background as its base. But it turned out that the movie didn't really took advantage of this in the development and execution. The opening looks quite nice with the back and forth flow of the story, starting the story near the ending point, and the quick story buildup between the start and the conflict revelation. But then it plunges into mediocrity, and quite honestly boredom, since the movie decreased its speed significantly and let the drama and investigation set in more dominantly. The action also don't take long when they happen. Too much use of close up angles combined with the very quick camera movement with less shot accuracy takes precious split seconds at those sequences to refocus on what we are viewing.The acting seems just a standard job in overall. It's a bad surprise considering the potentials of Dwayne Johnson and Liam Hemsworth.

"It's been reported that over 9 million dollars were taken in last night's heist."

Empire State surprisingly begins with a lot of promise. The beginning of the film sets the right mood and tone with an incredible 80's vibe bringing out some nostalgic memories. It had the right look and some interesting characters and the story is based on true events of one of the largest heists in American history. I thought I was going to enjoy this criminal thriller, but about half hour into the movie everything began to go downhill. Dwayne Johnson and Emma Roberts who were on the cover of the film are only supporting characters who get very little screen time. You begin to see characters come in and out of the story without any real purpose (Nikki Reed barely has a meaningless cameo in this). The true lead actors in Empire State are Liam Hemsworth and Michael Angarano, and their characters are portrayed in such a light that we are supposed to sympathize with these guys, but that never happens. Director, Dito Montiel (whose previous work include Fighting and The Son of No One both starring Channing Tatum), never manages to engage the audience with the film and it's disappointing because he had some talented actors and a great premise to work with. Overall the ending is probably the weakest and laziest part of the film after having a somewhat interesting buildup. The script was written by Emmy Award winning writer, Adam Mazer (You Don't Know Jack), and this is probably his weakest film. Montiel hasn't had much success in his films, but somehow he always manages to work with a high profile cast; if he doesn't do something different he is going to have a short career as a director.

The film is based on a true story about a heist that took place at Empire State armored truck company. Chris Potamitis (Liam Hemsworth) is a young kid who dreams of becoming a cop in order to help his family out. Unfortunately due to an incident that took place a few years ago with his best friend, Eddie (Michael Angarano), he is rejected by the Police Academy and is denied the test. Chris has to settle for working as a security guard at an armored truck company which doesn't pay much. To make matters worse, his partner is killed at a heist and the company doesn't pay the insurance for his family. Upset by this, Chris decides to steal a small amount of money from the company in order to help them out. He tells his friend Eddie about this and Eddie thinks it's a good idea to steal the millions of dollars that are stacked at this place with little security. Along with some other small time criminals, they plan to take it all, but they have to be careful because NYPD, James Ronsone (Dwayne Johnson) is hot on their trail. They will also have to watch out for the big mafia criminals who wouldn't appreciate a heist taking place in their area without their knowledge. Stealing the money might not be such an easy task as Eddie and Chris believe it to be.

Emma Roberts, Jerry Ferrara, Chris Diamantopoulos, and Michael Rispoli all play very small roles in this film. This is Dwight Johnson's fifth film of 2013 but this is by far his smallest and most forgettable role. Liam Hemsworth doesn't have what it takes to be a lead and so it was very hard to care for these characters and what was going on. The premise was promising, but somehow they couldn't create a decent criminal thriller that would engage the audience. It is a shame because this story could have been told so much better and some of the actors could have been used better. Overall I enjoyed the 80's vibe and the nostalgic feeling the first 30 minutes gave me reminding me of all the films I watched as a kid during that time. The last hour is so messy that it just ruined everything. The characters are completely one dimensional and cardboard copies and the film is completely predictable.