Dallas Fisher

Heist movies should have interesting and complex characters, scene stealing locations, and entertaining heist related moments sprinkled throughout. This instead has too many characters doing almost nothing heist related while switching locations dozens of times for no apparent reason. If you were also impressed with nothing of importance happening for the middle two hours in the original, you’re in luck again. 

If you saw the first film in this franchise, you’d know that Big Nick (Gerard Butler) was going through relationship problems while also trying to track down the bad guys. This added complexity to his character and intrigue throughout the movie, but in the sequel they completely removed him and that aspect out of L.A. It makes him boring with nothing to lose and honestly feels like they just couldn’t get his wife’s actor back. At least Gerard has some comedy chops on display here, but it still barely works with who he has to play off of. 

Nick tracks down Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) overseas where he is now eyeing the diamond exchange. Ice Cube Jr. is doing a HORRIBLE French accent, but only some of the time. Nick and Donnie teaming up in this movie makes no sense in the way that they explain it. They also have no chemistry, and I think Jackson is the reason for that. The title’s subtitle is also shoehorned in with one word and then completely forgotten about, making it a pointless subtitle. 

A lot of the plot is pushed further along throughout the movie just so they could have the characters waste time doing dumb things together to try and prove that Donnie now trusts Nick. This trust makes no sense when he is clearly there for him and the money he stole out of L.A. A majority of the dialogue is some of the most forced, made up things I have ever heard just to make the players on the teams sound smart. 

I really wanted to see them butting heads more to add some of that complexity back into this story’s arcs. Instead we get dozens of short scenes with generic, European “bad guys” with no personality. There is tons of pointless and elongated scenes where no-name characters are saying things twice because they had to make them all speak different languages. 

This is the longest feeling movie I have seen in awhile. I don’t think the directer (Christian Gudegast) took the time to make sure edits happened because there are too many instances of characters doing and saying nothing on screen. It feels like they just kept rolling in between takes and left the cameras on the actors while they were taking a deep breath or two. 

We get a wee bit of espionage with some sneaking around buildings, but it’s so poorly shot and scored that even if I was interested in what was happening, there was no tension to pull from it. The big “heist” this entire movie is building up to was the most pathetic excuse for one I have ever seen. You barely know who you’re looking at and why these people are where they are. The only reason I can see why they set this climax where they did was to brag about getting permission to film there. 

This “heist” movie is a major disgrace to the genre. It’s so boring and quiet that I was better off just listening to the couple next to me’s commentary. 

3.2/10