The Last Heist

Heat, Heist, Ocean's 11, The Score. Some great heist movies. Then there's "The Last Heist", which has Henry Rollins in it. You'd think that a man who's so opinionated, is a recognized actor, musician, man of thought would make sure what he's starring in is a decent film. Unfortunately either Henry is out of money, or so desperate to be in a movie that he'll take anything.

A promising beginning, a confrontation between sketchy van driver and Rollins set the stage for a possibly interesting watch. Unfortunately this movie is so cookie cutter, with every cheesy cliché line you can imagine written in. It's so cliché I couldn't even watch another minute past about 20 of them.

The script itself isn't very good, its exacerbated by powerful, powerful overacting by women whom I assume are very good on the casting couch, as based on their talent, I wouldn't cast them in a tampon commercial.

Amazingly enough this dog seems to be a straight to video release. I can't see anyone paying for a seat for this.

Part of me was intrigued before watching 'The Last Heist'. It sounded interesting with a great concept. Was also rather apprehensive, considering its critical panning. Saw 'The Last Heist' anyway out of curiosity, having seen my fair share of low-budget films recently, liking a good deal of heist films and liking the idea.

'The Last Heist' started off pretty well, giving off the sense that maybe the film won't be bad and be better than it seemed. The best thing about it is Henry Rollins, whose performance is effectively skin crawling as the only halfway interesting character in the whole thing and that it wasn't in a much better film is something of a sad waste.

On a visual level, 'The Last Heist' looked shoddy and like it ran out of money and time very early on. Drab and simplistic, with haphazard editing, far from slick photography and very artificial-looking visuals on the whole. The sets are confined and simple, but the simplicity is taken to extremes and it looks limited.

The sound/soundtrack are intrusive and obvious with no variation and the direction has no sense of atmosphere or pacing, nothing to be thrilled by and nothing much engaging.

Script is awkward-sounding and ponderous, with lines that do make one cringe, even Rollins' is not much to write home about, just your standard clichéd villain lines. A lot of it is gibberish and juvenile, with a stilted improvisatory feel that shouldn't have made it past draft stages.

On top of that, the story goes through the motions with no tension, suspense or thrills, a lot of intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, implausibility and pacing so dull that it makes a reasonably short length much longer. For an idea as good as here, nothing new is done here.

Characters are basically every stereotype in the book it seems and are one-dimensional caricatures with no likeability or development and with the inability to behave logically. The acting is very poor all round other than Rollins.

In summary, very lame apart from Rollins and the ok start. 3/10 Bethany Cox

In the main, cardboard characters collide with wooden acting.

That said, Henry Rollins demonstrates that he can overcome the obstacle of ropey material and still deliver a decent performance. What a shame he don't recognise ropey material in the first instance. Dressed like an undertaker, he does a capable job of playing the creepy, serial killer. Giving the best performance of all he elevates himself above cliché.

The story doesn't really hold together. In places, purpose-wise some of the characters' actions don't make any sense. They place themselves in harm's way to achieve no, apparently, useful goal. Both the good guys and the bad guys seem to be trying to trip themselves up in places.

A good heist, in the movies at least, should be tight and methodical, think Heat (1995). They get in, get rich and get away. Most robbbers don't want to run into the police and get caught. Presumably. These guys take all day. There is no sense of impending deadline, so there's no tension.

Conflict be shouldn't delivered in a way that makes characters unsympathetic. The robbers swear and gesticulate at one other too often to seem mature enough to be professional. Acting like juvenile delinquents makes them even more unsympathetic. This carry-on produces a sense of conflict but an irksome one.

I could go on but it's too depressing.

Overall, this lacks sympathetic characters and, because you cannot care about any of the characters, any real tension. It's slow, clumsy and clichéd. Television does it better.

This Movie would pass as a semi-okay student Project. Feels like that there was no money for a good script, good actors, better cameras, good special effects, and no money at all for post production.

But this isn't a student film, this is not even Mike Mendez's first film. And i don't see why Netflix payed money for this, waste of time, predictable bad movie! I feel sorry for Henry Rollins, and what has happened to him.

writing 10 lines here feels like more work, than Guy Stevenson put into the Script.

The Best thing about this Movie is the Poster!

The idea of the criminal mess that's about to happen in this vault is actually good, but that's all. The acting is poor, really poor, the scenes are cheap, it ruins everything, so I can't recommend the movie, but it gets 4 stars for the idea and because of the fact I've seen worst, way worst.