Hurricane heist a bumpy ride, stay home instead
THE HURRICANE HEIST
Direction: Rob Cohen
Actors: Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace Rating:
They rank among the most successful genres in American cinema. But don’t get your hopes up for this hybrid disaster-robbery caper. The Hurricane Heist — a generic title if ever there was one — is a whirlwind of vacuousness that strains your credibility from the get-go.
Here’s the plot: a ‘heroic’ meteorologist (Toby Kebbell), his whisky-sodden brother (Ryan Kwanten) and a US Treasury official (Maggie Grace) must prevent a bunch of nasties from stealing $600 million from the vaults of a mint, in the midst of a storm.
The script is stodgy, the effects absurd.
Saddled with shootouts, explosions, and stormy devastation, the film does little more than place cartoonish stereotypes in perilous situations. The climactic chase occurs across the eye of a hurricane. And yes, it looks as absurd as it sounds.
Throughout, the action scenes are so poorly executed that it is difficult to follow exactly what is happening and to whom. The overload of weather-related mumbo-jumbo leads to further befuddlement.
The epitome of joyless cinematic hackwork, The Hurricane Heist doesn’t even qualify for the ‘so bad, it’s good’ category.