The Hurricane Heist, 2018.
Directed by Rob Cohen.
Starring Maggie Grace, Toby Kebbell, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson, Randy Couture, Melissa Bolona, and Jamie Andrew Cutler.
SYNOPSIS:
Thieves attempt a massive heist against the U.S. Treasury as a Category 5 hurricane approaches one of its Mint facilities.
The Hurricane Heist is only a film through technicality. It’s a series of narrative images that when placed next to one another create an illusion of movement. It’s a film much in the same way Geostorm is a film, or Independence Day: Resurgence. For the sake of this review, it is a film, it isn’t, but for the sake of semantics, it is.
Certain “films” have a pre-destined end point: bargain bins in your local Tesco, the untouched shelves of DVDs that litter Poundland, stuffed between a D-list celebrity’s workout and a Steven Seagal euro-action flick. The Hurricane Heist, Sky Movies further misjudged foray into original programming, wears this end point like a badge of honour. It’s aware of it’s own fate and – be it rather impressively – tries everything in order to worm its way into every “so bad it’s good list,” and into the echelons of all bad movie podcasts.
Directed with minimum restraint by permanent peddler of schlock Rob Cohen, The Hurricane Heist finds a group of hard worn thieves attempting the “heist of the century” by embarking on a robbery of a US treasury facility; thus the heist. Then the hurricane, a storm of exposition and plotting and little more. It brings in Toby Kebbell’s Will Rutledge, a supposed meteorologist but also action hero and his long unseen brother Breeze Rutledge (Ryan Kwanten). The two of them alongside Maggie Grace’s Casey Corbyn task themselves with stopping the robbery whilst also attempting to survive the “storm of the century.”
None of this matters, it’s all bunkum and proudly so. An early flashback to a young Will and Breeze represents the storm as a literal skull with all the subtlety of slamming your thumbs in a car door. The storm manifests itself only to loosely further the story – a convenient change in air pressure turns a shopping mall into an air pressure chamber – giving poor Toby Kebbell the sad job of having to explain the whole affair.
Only he can answer exactly why Kebbell is scraping the bottom of the barrel, but it’s a concerning career move from a hugely promising and talented actor who deserves far better. At least he’s having fun however. Alongside Grace and Kwanten, the trio hop, skip and jump along at a ferried pace. Ralph Ineson chews scenery with aplomb as conveniently slimy villain Perkins.
It’s clearly not supposed to be taken seriously, at all. Down to the choice of font, a letter-by-letter replica of The Fast and Furious series, it’s little more than a series of set pieces loosely interconnected by characters that if you squint just hard enough, begin to look something almost human.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Thomas Harris
