Heist (2009/Echo Bridge DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Feature: D

 

 

Sometimes a genre or aspect of a genre is done so well or in such a way that it imprisons it that it is hard to do it any other way unless you have something great to offer storywise.  Since Michael Mann’s Heat (1995, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site), any film showing any kind of heist has tried to look like that film and the problem is none of them can because Mann’s style at the time (i.e., before he switched from film to HD and not always for the better) was to distinctive.  The result is that releases like Cooper/Jordan’s Heist (2009) land up looking like a bad imitator of Mann’s old Miami Vice TV show.

 

We get the criminals, the law who wants to stop them and more powerful criminals who also get in their way.  We have seen this done to death and it has become a Hip Hop cliché and staple after being a 1980s cliché, so this dud (written by co-director and co-star Rick Jordan and Lee Denny) is a very by-the-numbers bit that really is showing what the makers think is good filmmaking when it is just their barely sufficient ideas about filmmaking.

 

Never are any of the characters believable, nor is much of the dialogue, while the action is dull.  There is no suspense, nothing new here and this becomes thin very early on.  The ethnic characters are borderline stereotypes and this is like a bad TV movie hidden on cable very late at night as filler.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 is very soft and is likely shot on older HD (1080i?) not ever looking that good and can even be sloppy.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is rough stereo at best with harshness throughout and one of the most clichéd scores I have heard in a long while.  There are (thankfully) no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo