Lift

Starring: Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Worthington, Vincent D'Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó, Billy Magnussen, Jean Reno, Jacob Batalon, Burn Gorman, Yun Jee Kim, Viveik Kalra

Director: F. Gary Gray

Master thief Cyrus Whitaker (Hart) and his team (D'Onofrio, Corberó, Magnussen, Kim, Kalra) have been caught by Interpol after attempting to steal an expensive and one-of-a-kind NFT from an auction. Abby Gladwell (Mbatha-Raw), the agent in charge who shares a past with Cyrus, gives him an ultimatum: Help Interpol heist millions in gold from a plane midflight or spend the rest of his life in jail. The catch is that owner of the gold is Lars Jorgensen (Reno), a ruthless criminal mastermind who plans to use the gold to finance his next endeavor. While Cyrus and his team are very skilled, they soon find their mission more dangerous than they were expecting.

Netflix is an interesting studio, one that occasionally will produce awards caliber films like Roma or this year's Maestro but more than often their big budget films feel like they were written by an algorithm (Red Notice, Heart of Stone, Bright). They often still attract high caliber talent, which makes their final product all the more disappointing. Unfortunately, audiences have themselves to blame since they keep watching, lured in by the cast and not having to leave their homes to watch movies that used to grace the big screen. Netflix hopes to start the year right and break the mold with this heist thriller.

Unfortunately for them, this isn't any different and the algorithm feels like it is operating at full power. Buzz words like NFT are thrown around and features high tech planes and cool gadgets. The action is very CGI heavy and very generic. Movies like Soderbergh's Ocean's 11 remake taught audiences that these movies could be fun but this forgets that. Director F. Gary Gray has made some good movies (The Negotiator, Straight Outta Compton, The Italian Job) in the past but after the critical and financial disappointment of MIB: International he seems very content to roll around in the Netflix money pool. Despite the financial backing, the visuals don't even look that good. I've seen better visuals in video games, although they don't reach the embarrassing lows of Expend4bles. The script, which was written by Daniel Kunka, feels like it is building towards a big twist that never comes. I don't even know that it would have been necessary for a twist to happen but at least it would have given the the story a little flair. Everything just plays out exactly how you would expect.

The actors are game here, with Hart playing against type as the leader. If this was meant to be a comedy, he didn't get the memo. He has good chemistry with his team, especially Úrsula Corberó. Whenever the two of them are on screen the movie works and becomes instantly more watchable. Coming off terribly is Sam Worthington, who plays Gugu Mbatha-Raw's boss at Interpol. It feels like the actor (and the script) can't decide if he is going to be a villain or not. This leaves his character just kind of existing, which also becomes an issue for some other actors, like Vincent D'Onofrio, just being around and not given much of anything to do. His character is a "master of disguise" but he doesn't seem important to anything the rest of the crew do in the movie.

But the movie is a quick hour and 45 minutes. The movie flies by whether you are paying attention or just decided to put it on in the background. Netflix doesn't care and it will continue to feed the algorithm. It's not the worst thing you'll see but it's also not good.

Grade: C-

Lift is available to stream on Netflix