Code 211

This movie is a 1 raised to a 5 by Nicolas Cage. The writing and directing are a joke. The story is basic and okay, it is the actual lines that are written that are embarrassing, I would swear a 14 year old with zero life experience wrote it. Unfortunately, Shackleton had just enough family money and influence to make this. It is saved a little by the fact that Cage can do a lot without any directing. The other participants, can't call them actors, really needed some direction and just didn't get it. So I beg you, York (yes, that is his name, you know, like the peppermint pattie) I beg you take all that family money and "hard earned snowboarding money" and donate it to a charity, you are just not talented enough to use it properly.

This was a mishmash of a movie. Wooden acting. Unrealistic. Bad plotting. Starts with a woman typing frantically on computer during a download. Why? Then people get blown up and killed for no apparent reason. Then the movie begins with a contrived situation about bullying so some kid can go on a ride along because it's in the script. After that, you have the tried and tired daughter and estranged father conflict. I like Nicolas cage. I think he's made some great movies -- i.e. Face/Off and Family Man -- but nothing worthwhile in at least 10 years. And worst of all, the acting was like planks of wood interacting. I could smell the ham from my computer. Someone obviously owed someone else a big favor otherwise this movie would never have been green lit.

Granted that I had little expectations for "211" from writer and director York Alec Shackleton when I sat down to watch it. Why? Well, solely because this was just screaming to be another Nicolas Cage movie.

So was it? Both yes and no. Yes, in the sense that he trotted on with his usual stumped performance with just a single grimace throughout the entire movie. No, because the storyline sort of veered from the usual stuff that he participates in.

Was it a good movie? Nah, it was adequate, albeit quite generic. The storyline had its moments, not many, but it had them. But for a bank heist movie, then it offered very little to the cinematic experience that haven't already been seen in other bank heist movies.

The dialogue in the movie was good, and the characters were good, which definitely worked in favor of the movie. However, some of the things that the bank robbers were doing just made so little sense, especially since they were supposed to be highly trained military people.

All in all, an adequately entertaining movie that will suffice if you have nothing more pressing on the to-watch-list. But this is hardly a movie that you will be returning to watch a second time around.

You like wood? Great, just check out the 'acting' in this abomination. A shame as the camera work is actually ok, but the bloody acting ( if you can call it that) is so stilted and forced it's untrue. I'm about 20 minutes in, but I'm a glutton for punishment... I'll sit through this crap so you don't have too. Yep I'm a martyr. Ok, I've finished it, my opinion hasn't changed, it's bloody awful... Infact I'm knocking a star off from 4 to 3... So contrived it made my eyes bleed.

Good action scenes, but terrible acting, awful script, cliched characters and predictable deaths.