Coin Heist

There are enough things inherent in "Coin Heist" that it really shouldn't work. The plot is outlandish, the ending descends into schmaltz, and (at heart) it's a teen coming-of-age drama (not like there are any of those floating around these days). However, despite all the unevenness and clichés, "Coin Heist" still manages to at least be entertaining due to the great acting and slickness of the setup.

For a basic plot summary (no spoilers), "Coin Heist" sees Jason (Alex Saxon) struggling with the reality that his father has been stealing from his high school's endowment, leaving the father in prison and the school in danger of shutting down. After a field trip to the U.S. mint, however, Jason's friend Alice (Alexis G. Zall), a hacker at heart and in skill, devises a plan to infiltrate the mint and print some rare coins that can be sold to save the school. The plan will only work, however, if they can also rope in organization queen Dakota (Sasha Pieterse) and outsider Benny (Jay Walker).

For the first half or so of "Coin Heist", I was invested in the characters and their mission. The producers do a great job of setting up the backgrounds of each character, and I really felt like they could be real high-schoolers. Sure, their mission is highly improbable, but that's what cinema is all about, right?!

The problem, however, is that after that roughly half-way point my investment really started to wane for two reasons:

1. The build-up to the caper was much more interesting than the caper itself; and 2. I felt that the ending descending into a bit too much hijinx and corniness for my liking. I realize this is a film directed at teens, so perhaps it plays a bit better to that demographic, but for an older viewer it seemed like a bit of a letdown to build up these great characters and then have them, in most cases, succumb to the tropes of the genre I was afraid would happen from the get-go.

So, while I can easily give "Coin Heist" a slightly-better-than-average 6 out of 10 stars here, I feel that it failed to take that "next step" into the greatness range due to its "running out of steam" in the latter portion. The target audience (teens) may disagree with me here, of course.

A Netflix production that fails to impress on literally every aspect of filmmaking. It's script is at times cheesy, doesn't make sense (why discuss a teenage crush in the middle of a robbery?) and the entire middle segment of the story is boring as hell. The directing isn't much better either. Some awkward shots and blocking in there. And the acting ranges from poor to mediocre. We watched this one with the family (40,38,13,11 years old). Not one of us enjoyed it.

Has some elements of that classic 80's teen movie however has a ton of flaws. The teacher character is unlikable and it's amazing how these 16 year olds can pass as professional adults on multiple occasions. Movie will require a little suspension of belief to enjoy.

The premise is wonderful, the actuality of the script is bonkers. Unlike another reviewer here I do not find Netflix Originals groundbreaking in totality They are some of the worst put together movies I have ever seen. They are even starting to produce Lifetime-like movies only using b-c list actors instead of f-g list ones. This movie is watchable however... not mad at it. Just absurd in the sense that none of this could really happen.

If you can appreciate a decent heist story pulled of by decent teenage characters, without Hollywood production values, then you should really give this a try.

Emily Hagins wrote and directed and I think she did a fine job with the adaptation from a novel. The narrative had a strong even pace and it never dragged. The young actors gave it their all, and I think they pulled it off just fine.

Don't be too critical of these small indie efforts, and you'll find a gem or two. "Coin Heist" may not have the huge budget that the "Oceans" series had, but the story was just as interesting and just as well told.

Enjoy it.