This may be the most annoying movie ever made.
It’s certainly one of the worst.
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| With his get-rich-quick bank heist gone south, deranged psychopath Danny Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal, left) screams at the pursuing police vehicles to "Stay back!", while his adopted brother Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) tries to keep their speeding ambulance on the road. |
The English language, graced with such a vast and colorful collection of adjectives and adverbs, is insufficient to adequately explain just how deplorable this film is. (But I shall try.)
Chris Fedak’s bone-stupid, so-called script hasn’t a shred of credibility, and his dialogue is as limp as a dead banana. The one-dimensional acting ranges from ludicrously stoic — notably Garret Dillahunt’s somnambulant, I’ve-wandered-in-from-another-movie portrayal of LAPD tactical SIS Capt. Monroe — to over-the-top, foaming-at-the-mouth derangement (Jake Gyllenhaal, take a bow for a performance so bad, you’re guaranteed a Razzzie Award).
Cinematographer Roberto De Angelis relies heavily on swooping, swooshing, barrel-roll, upside-down, skyscraper-hugging drone shots guaranteed to send unprepared viewers into motion-sickness shock: all assembled and cut at hyperspeed by a team of editors — Doug Brandt, Pietro Scalia and Calvin Wimmer — who obviously laced their morning coffee with meth.
Note to Mr. Bay: The mere fact that you can do something with drone cameras, doesn’t mean you should. And the result sure as hell isn’t anything approaching art or craft.
Not even 10 minutes into this barrage of wretched excess, I was fighting vertigo and nausea.
The “story,” such as it is.
Decorated military veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), at wit’s end trying to navigate insurance restrictions, can’t get clearance for the expensive surgery required to fix his wife’s unspecified medical condition. (Of course it’s unspecified; otherwise, Fedak would have had to do actual research.)
Will therefore — unwisely — seeks a loan from his motor-mouthed career criminal brother, Danny (Gyllenhaal). Instead, Will gets roped into joining a motley, heavy caliber-toting crew on a “perfectly planned” heist to steal $32 million from a nearby bank.
Elsewhere, we meet plucky ambulance EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González), who can “keep anybody alive for 20 minutes, but can’t keep a partner.” She trades flirty, tone-deaf banter with newly assigned colleague Scott (Colin Woodell).
Elsewhere, we meet patrol officer Mark (Cedric Sanders), who encourages his rookie partner Zach (Jackson White) to try for a date with a cute teller at — wouldn’t you just know it — the same bank Danny’s crew is about to hit.
