Review

  • Warning: Spoilers
    I have to be honest: I really tried to like the movie, but ultimately I couldn't. I enjoyed some of the performances and I liked many of the jokes but, scriptwise, the movie is very lacking.

    First of all, the first act felt too dialogue-heavy and lacked action. And I don't mean action as in punches or bazookas. I mean action as in something happening. Too much of the information was delivered through dialogue which isn't ideal.

    The second act had some entertaining moments. The recruiting and the heist were fairly good. However, I felt a lack of sense of structure in the script. The heist ends but the third act doesn't even start yet. We are introduced to a bunch of characters that really add too little to justify their appearance. For example: the nurse, which couldn't even count as a romantic interest as she only appears twice in the movie, Sebastian Stan's character, who's only purpose was to reject the other race guy's testimony (and this doesn't even happen on camera, but through a line from Hilary Swank's). Even the other race guy has no particular reason to be in the movie as his testimony never complicates the life for the protagonists and, therefore, adds nothing to the plot. And finally, Hilary Swank. I really don't understand the role of her character in the movie. It's a wannabe antagonist that never really antagonizes. She never, since she appears for the first time, complicates things for the protagonists. Not once. I don't understand why these characters appear or, if they will, why they are not given something more interesting to do.

    The movie also raised too many questions that, at least I, couldn't answer. I think this happened in a (and this is my opinion) failed attempt to be clever. For example, it is mentioned that an anonymous source confessed the location of the money. This was supposedly Channing Tatum. But why would he do it? They stole the money from Daniel Craig's brothers. Again, why? Was that the money that was given back? Why go through a lot of problems only to steal their money and give it back to the authorities? Why did Hilary Swank suddenly turn to the thieves side at the end, when flirting with Adam Driver?

    I don't know. The movie didn't do it for me. I feel there were too many loose ends and many unnecessary elements that could have been cut out. But that's just me.