Right away, I knew I would like the cinematography of this movie. It starts with a close up tilt of the Empire State building from a horizontally moving helicopter. Then then next shot is a Dutch angle moving forward inside of a bank.

I love the way this initial bank robbery scenes are filmed. I'm a sucker for realism. The robbers come out of the van with masks completely covering their faces. They have high quality gloves that go up their wrists. They have real bulletproof vests. Right away the put their shotguns into ready positions.

The movie did a good job with the outdoor scenes in general. They clearly got permits to close off all four corners of the street. They did a really good job handling the extras in these scenes. No one is just standing there in the background picking their noses. This scene is hyper realistic.

The artistry and perfection with the camera work continues through the entire movie. [For example, the natural double exposure below that they capture in two different angles perfectly]. This would be a good movie to study the lightining, camera angles, editing etc.

The characters in this movie are ... odd. The character below is the "cowboy" type. He even wears a weird farmer type hat at one point. Besides the fact that this is the lamest archetype ever, this actor just cannot pull off the subtle southern accent at all. You can tell this guy is from N.Y or Boston or somewhere with a very different accent. He switches back into his normal voice a lot and it's really horrible.

Speaking of horrible characters ... the main character is horribly written. He is your typical, gumba, doofus, fast talker, N.Y musclehead. He is also the stereotypical triple agent cop. You never know who he's really playing for. It's a weird character for a bank robbery movie. This movie plays like it's half a detective movie and half a high stakes bank robbery movie.

Another horrible character in this movie is the gang boss. Not only do they have to have a female in charge, but she has to be a complete doll face. You can call me sexist if you want, but the fact is that movie like this are really the sexist thing here. First of all, if you see an ACTUAL female gang leader in a mugshot in real life, they will probably look like a dog-faced crackhead. What is even the concept of these bombshell, model looking female gang leaders? The cops will go easy on them? They can be better social engineers? It's a loose concept I see in lots of movies.

The ironic thing is these characters just end up portraying sexism anyways. They always end up putting down their guard and falling in love. Or they get arrested by the big male cops and end up squirming like a worm and reveal their feminine side that way. This movie is no different. At the end it's revealed she can't kill anyone.

I should mention at this point that the movie is out of order. BIG MISTAKE. I've thought about making a fan edit where the movie is in chronological order because I think it would be much better. The movie starts with the heart racing, hyper realistic bank robbery scenes. Then you start getting these dramatic flashbacks. The movie would be a lot better if it just started with the dramatic scenes and ended with the bank robbery. Instead, they wanted a memento style bank robbery movie.

The action scenes in this movie are great. The way the gunplay is filmed reminds me of the matrix movies. Like I said before, the best part of this movie is the hyperrealism. This is true of the action scenes as well. When someone gets gunned down they are dead. There are no scenes of someone dying slowly. There is even a scene of a bank robber getting shot once and then dying.

The police closing off the area scene is also very realistic. I've seen a lot of bank robber movies sort of cheat this scene with either an area that isn't downtown or using tricky camera angles. In this movie they clearly closed off an entire downtown street corner. I also liked their choice of shots [aka good editing and directing] it wasn't just a bunch of cops running around randomly.




Another horrible character is the hostage negotiator [bank robber] guy. He disguises his voice by talking like Batman. [does that even work in real life]? He is supposed to be the "didn't know how crazy he was until halfway through the movie" character. He is just awful. It's like a knockoff Heath Ledger Joker.

We need to talk about this weird meta joke. It's pretty much the only actual joke throughout the movie. It's actually kind of funny, but it's the only meta joke in the whole movie. It's just insanely cringe in this movie though.

Also I want to know if this device actually exists, because it looks like they straight up make it up. I call major bullshit on this device being realistic. I'm getting made for T.V vibes from this scene. Is this a smart pvc pipe Lol.



I enjoyed the major plot twist of the bank robbery being for information on a disc. It leaves you guessing for a few moments on what they are actually stealing. Government blackmail information? Important passcodes? Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5?

**The whole troupe of "this is MY jurisdiction dammit!" is really overplayed, but this movie did a really good job with it. I like how they get madder and madder and then almost exchange blows. This movie does have a lot of clichés though:

1. The sexy females crime boss.
2. The triple agent undercover cop.
3. A "why is his mask off" scene.
4. Pervy criminal who tries to bang a hostage.
5. Gumba NY cops.
6. " This is my jurisdiction" scene. [You just want to storm the castle don't you!]
7. "Why do you do this for a living anyways" scene.
8. Cowboy character.
9. Bad guys love playing poker.
10. Female crime boss reveals feminine side which gets her arrested.

This movies has one of the worst endings I've ever seen for a bank robbery movie. I've very confusing. Forst of all, the gang leader chick has a pistol pointed at the gumba undercover cop. The undercover guy drops his gun and just yells "I'm a cop" over and over. Then they straight up execute this chick with like 40 automatic rounds. It's like a Vietnam War level atrocity.

Then, the gumba cop bumps into the desk teller who says he "dropped his briefcase" and grabs it. This ending is confusing on about 300 different levels. The cop and desk teller were alone before but he acted like a hostage ... who were they fooling? The camera person? This bank teller is a criminal? He is working with a cop?What a stupid end of the movie twist. Boo!

[This movie reminds me why I hate "X character is really in control the whole time" movies].

Overall I would give this movie a 6/10.