Masterplan: Too lightweight

Masterplan (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated TV-MA, for mild profanity and dramatic tension

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.25.26 

Nothing is blatantly wrong with this larkish, lavishly produced heist thriller.

 

Cinematographer Matteo Cocco lovingly lenses the Rome and Paris location settings, particularly the latter’s Palace du Louvre, and its iconic glass-and-steel pyramid entrance. Production designer Paki Meduri devotes similar attention to the often lush interiors and grittier underground environments, and composer Polérik Rouvière’s score adds appropriate bounce to the heist and action sequences.

 

Chiara (Simona Tabasco) and Jay (Victor Belmondo, right) fist-bump their new
partnership, while mastermind Roger (Stanley Tucci) beams with pleasure.

The film’s timing also is fortuitous, given its proximity to the audacious Crown Jewels heist at the Louvre Museum last October.

Stars Stanley Tucci, Victor Belmondo and Simona Tabasco are pleasing to the eye, and their line deliveries are genre-appropriate ... and that’s part of the problem.

 

The script — credited to five (!) writers — never catches fire. Thomas Vincent’s soulless direction is too slick; Tucci, Belmondo and Tabasco’s characters are too glib, their banter too coy, their expressions too movie. I don’t doubt that they had fun making this film, but not for a moment do their characters feel like real people.

 

To quote Humphrey Bogart’s classic line from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, their performances are, much too blatantly, “the stuff that dreams are made of” ... and very little else.

 

Chiara (Tabasco), a gifted Italian cybercrime expert, is introduced mid-heist at a lavish, upscale Roman toga party. Jay (Belmondo), a limber French athlete and talented explosives expert, similarly is burgling the presidential suite in a Parisian hotel.

 

Both receive a can’t-resist invitation to meet Roger (Tucci) at his lavishly appointed Lake Como mansion. Their first surprise comes upon learning that Roger actually is the “Snow Leopard,” a legendary master thief. Their second surprise hits immediately thereafter, when Roger reveals that they’re actually half-siblings ... and he’s their father.

 

The third, and biggest surprise? He needs their unique skills to successfully steal the Louvre’s iconic Mona Lisa.

 

Their reactions to that proposal are understandable. Ridiculous. Can’t be done.

 

Ah, but Roger has spent 10 years crafting the perfect plan, and the perfect moment is at hand: October 18, seven days hence, when the museum guards go on strike, leaving a meager support staff. (Cheekily, the actual Louvre heist occurred on October 19.)

 

Roger, convinced that temptation and skill are inbred via “thief genetics,” knows full well that Jay and Chiara will accept. Which they do.

 

In the Grey: An engaging guilty pleasure

In the Grey (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for violence and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.4.26

British writer/director Guy Ritchie’s action thrillers always are clever, vicarious fun, in great part because of the snarky, deadpan dry wit with which his characters operate.

 

This one is no exception.

 

With bodyguards Sid (Henry Cavill, left) and Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) keeping a close
watch, Rachel (Eiza González) executes her next move, in an ongoing scheme to make
an unscrupulous billionaire pay back the $1 billion that he "borrowed" from a U.S.-based
asset management firm.

Its fleeting, blink-and-you-missed-it release on this side of the pond, back in mid-May — resulting in a paltry $5.7 million gross in the United States and Canada — therefore can be chalked up to marketing incompetence, rather than any indication of the film’s merits. In short, it was dumped, and subsequently consigned to streaming services.

So, what did theatergoers miss?

 

Accomplished, unruffled — and aptly named — corporate lawyer Rachel Wild (Eiza González) introduces her occupation and methods via voice-over. She specializes in recovering debts for wealthy and powerful clients, often operating in the “grey area” between legal and larcenous, always assisted by off-books operatives Sid (Henry Cavill) and Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal).

 

The latest potential client is Spencer Goldstein, an asset management firm whose public face is the cold-blooded Bobby Sheen (Rosamund Pike, appropriately condescending). The firm recently “loaned” $1 billion to ruthless billionaire Manny Salazar (Carlos Bardem), who has refused to pay it back: no surprise to anybody who knows the slightest thing about the guy, as Rachel, Sid and Bronco coolly agree.

 

Objecting to the size of Rachel’s “finder’s fee,” Bobby first sends fellow “fixer” Braxton (Darrell D’Silva) to Salazar’s private Spanish island, to negotiate terms. He’s quickly killed by the billionaire’s security chief, Axel Olsson (Kristofer Hivju, quite credible as a scary sociopath).

 

Back to the wall, Bobby reluctantly accepts Rachel’s terms, at which point Ritchie slides his film into high camp. Rachel describes every facet of Phase One — Procedural and Practical — via a humorous version of a grade-school tutorial session. Sid and Bronco listen attentively, while she calmly makes herself a stovetop negroni svegliato cocktail. 

 

Rachel’s initial conference with Salazar’s attorney, William Horowitz (Fisher Stevens), is mere formality; she knows he’ll simply laugh at her. Which he does, although not without a nervous glance in chaperone Sid’s direction.

 

The team then applies pressure, first by halting Salazar’s construction projects, and also crippling his oil rig. Those and other tactics — all carefully vetted and approved by a judge — get the billionaire’s attention.

 

But that’s just the initial salvo. While Horowitz becomes an increasingly hysterical nervous wreck — losing every court appearance — Rachel, Sid and Bronco slide into Phase Two: Planning and Preparation. The boys take notes and rope in tech/computer guru Ed Glover (Michael Vu), explosives expert Gucci Reyes (Jason Wong), ace getaway driver Jonathan Moreno (Christian Ochoa Lavernia) and seasoned pilot Mick Dunne (Emmett J. Scanlan).

 

Knowing that these increasingly expensive jabs ultimately will result in Salazar demanding a sit-down meeting, Sid and Bronco outline the means by which he and their team will “secure” the heavily guarded island, employing a staggeringly impressive supply of weapons and vehicles. The planning is essential, since they’ll be badly outnumbered by Salazar’s private army.

 

All of these details simultaneously appear, in script, on the left side of the screen ... as they might be listed by a school teacher on a blackboard.

 

Rachel’s teams also repeatedly practice contingency plans for evacuating her, if necessary, via one of the island’s three possible extraction points.

 

Even the quieter ploys are ingenious, such as some dodgy backgammon games, and a (ahem) “Trojan Rat.”

 

We can’t help being impressed by the absurd, over-the-top thoroughness of all this preparatory effort: both from the standpoint of Ritchie having concocted every meticulously far-fetched element, and also because of the accomplished thoroughness with which Sid, Bronco and their guys set up and rehearse all the details. 

 

It’s hard not to laugh ... but it’s a chuckle of head-shaking admiration.

 

And we think, golly; what could possibly go wrong?

 

Silly question, of course.

 

Cavill and Gyllenhaal are a stitch, both collectively and individually. Both are preternaturally calm and unruffled, neither smiling much, although Gyllenhaal’s half-smile — often when Bronco is confronted by an adversary — means that he’s about to do something lethal. Cavill’s Sid is just a touch looser, and less inclined to impulse, as befits his nickname of “Captain Sensible.”

 

Together, Sid and Bronco share the easygoing banter of a comfortably married couple ... and, indeed, if they aren’t a couple at the moment, they clearly were at one time.

 

The eternally poised González makes it easy to understand why all of the cheerfully unscrupulous Rachel’s “boys” regard her with such trust and respect, as befits her nickname of “Mom.” At the risk of stating the obvious, González also looks terrific in all of costume designer Loulou Bontemps’ strikingly colorful outfits.

 

Stevens has a marvelous time as the increasingly harried and terrified Horowitz, deservedly wondering when Salazar will snap and blame him for everything that has gone wrong.

 

Even as the situation turns violent in the third act, nothing can be taken seriously. Ritchie maintains a mocking tone throughout, well aware that he’s orchestrating preposterous nonsense. He never loses his story’s reliance on boy’s-own-adventure attitude. It’s all great fun, up to the final scene, with its promise of anticipated payback.

 

Everybody involved deserved much better exposure than this film got. 

The Vault: Definitely worth opening

The Vault (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.13.21 

We must acknowledge that complex heist films are utterly preposterous, involving improbable insider knowledge, unlikely coincidence and impossible split-second timing.

 

That doesn’t make them any less fun.

 

Having already navigated an impressive series of obstacles, our heroes — from left,
Thom (Freddie Highmore), James (Sam Riley) and Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) —
are stunned by what comes next.

Director Jaume Balagueró’s entry in this engaging genre is a multi-national production involving five writers and 10 production companies, half of which display their insufferably arty logos before the film begins. Normally, so many cooks would be a recipe for disaster, but Balagueró somehow keeps an iron grip on this menagerie.

The caper also involves a twist I’ve not previously encountered: an objective so mysterious — the eponymous vault — that our protagonists have no idea what they don’t know about it … and yet must crack it.

 

But that’s getting ahead of things.

 

The setting is roughly a decade ago. Professional marine salvage expert Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) and his longtime partner James (Sam Riley) have just concluded a decades-long hunt for the remains of a 17th century ship, half-buried on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. Moreland knows that the booty includes a set of coins used by the ship’s captain, Sir Francis Drake, to reveal where he buried vast treasures that he plundered during his career as a privateer.

 

Treasures that the British government wishes to retrieve, since Drake had a tendency to cheat his Elizabethan sponsors (so this story would have us believe). Ergo, Moreland has been getting clandestine assistance from a shadowy MI6 operative (Famke Janssen).

 

Alas, before Moreland can search the many recovered chests for the coins, his operation is intercepted by the Spanish Coast Guard. Since he lacks a legal salvage claim, the Spanish government seizes everything and locks it in an impregnable vault, somewhere within Madrid’s historic Bank of Spain. The nature of this vault, reputed to be the world’s most secure, has remained a carefully guarded secret for 70 years.

 

Elsewhere, 22-year-old Cambridge University engineering student Thom (Freddie Highmore) has just become a media sensation, courted by all manner of tech corporations, thanks to the ingenious manner in which he averted what could have become a major environmental crisis. Thom is a think-outside-the-box improviser with little interest in corporate fealty; he’s more intrigued by solving “impossible tasks” for their own sake.

 

Which makes him ideal for Moreland’s purposes.

Ocean's 8: Larkish ladies of larceny

Ocean's 8 (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for brief profanity, fleeting drug use and mild suggestive content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.8.18

As long as reasonable care is taken — sharp script, skilled direction, a competent cast — light-hearted caper thrillers can’t miss.

That’s definitely the case with Ocean’s 8.

With their compatriots "on assignment" at Cartier headquarters, the bulk of the team —
from left, Debbie (Sandra Bullock), Tammy (Sarah Paulson), Nine Ball (Rihanna),
Lou (Cate Blancett) and Constance (Awkwafina) — tracks progress via a computer monitor.

If this new film pales slightly when compared to 2001’s sparkling remake of Ocean’s Eleven, it’s mostly because the formula has lost some luster via repetition. Still, the well-designed gender switch compensates for such familiarity, and there’s no question that director Gary Ross — who also scripted this re-boot, with Olivia Milch — assembles the pieces with élan, and then guides them through a devious chess game laden with twists ... at least one of which likely will be a surprise.

Mostly, Ross delivers the necessary level of fun, which was so crucial to the 2001 predecessor’s success. We always had a sense that George Clooney & Co. were playing themselves, as much as their characters — which was absolutely true of the 1960 Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin original — and that added effervescent bonhomie to the action. These were guys with whom we wanted to share war stories over cocktails; the same is true of this Girls Just Want To Have Fun reworking.

And yes — just to be clear — this gender switch is far better, in every possible way, than 2016’s conceptually similar but otherwise misguided remake of Ghostbusters.

We meet Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) — the equally larcenous sister of Clooney’s Danny Ocean — immediately following a prison stretch of five years, eight months and 12 days. Rather than accept this sentence as a lesson learned, Debbie spent the entire time devising, refining and perfecting what she now believes will be the perfect crime: the theft of the Toussaint, a unique diamond necklace valued at $150 million, which stays locked in an impenetrable vault in the bowels of the Cartier mansion.

All she needs is a crew.

Bullock’s Debbie is perky, poised and polished: utterly unflappable, and generally sporting a mildly self-confident smirk that potential marks immediately find disarming. This contrasts nicely with the wary and somewhat hardened Lou (Cate Blanchett), Debbie’s former partner in crime, who is less than enthusiastic when given the opportunity to resume their illicit ways.

Debbie mocks; Lou challenges. Bullock and Blanchett make an excellent team, and the script teases us with the possibility that their relationship might run deeper than mere professional camaraderie.

Logan Lucky: Misfit heist comedy beats the odds

Logan Lucky (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat harshly, for brief profanity and crude language
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.25.17

Director Steven Soderbergh appears to have been bitten by the Fargo bug.

The droll, slow-burn Logan Lucky could be described as a cross between Soderbergh’s Oceans 11 and that iconic 1996 crime thriller — and its more recent, and ongoing, television adaptation — with additional regional absurdity supplied by an impudent original script credited to “Rebecca Blunt.”

Jimmy (Channing Tatum, right) employs a cardboard diorama to explain his "perfect
scheme" for robbing the heavily guarded underground vault at the Charlotte Motor
Speedway, as his brother Clyde (Adam Driver) reacts with mounting disbelief.

The quotes are intentional, because no such person exists. As yet, this film’s writer hasn’t been identified, although sources have suggested Soderbergh, or his wife Jules Asner, or several other possibilities. Certainly Soderbergh is no stranger to pseudonyms; indeed, he employs two for Logan Lucky, having supplemented his director’s duties as both cinematographer (under the name Peter Andrews) and editor (as Mary Ann Bernard).

The narrative here certainly displays Soderbergh’s long-established dry wit and arch sense of humor, and the film is guaranteed to delight viewers who appreciate the methodical build-up and eccentric characters that more frequently populate British quasi-comedies.

The storyline takes its time while bringing the primary characters to the stage. The setting is small-town West Virginia, where divorced, down-on-his-luck Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) never gets to spend enough time with doting young daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie, cute as a button). Jimmy’s intentions are good, but circumstances always interfere, much to the displeasure of ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), now married to the insufferably wealthy — and insufferably smug — Moody (David Denman).

Jimmy spends considerable time commiserating with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost an arm during war service in Iraq, and now tends bar at a local dive rather oddly dubbed the Duck Tape. Clyde is convinced that every member of their clan is doomed by a longstanding “family curse,” hence his missing arm, and Jimmy’s injury-related limp, with similar misfortune stretching back generations.

Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) sniffs at such nonsense, and well she should; there’s certainly nothing amiss in her life. Far from it: Aside from being a talented and popular hairdresser, Mellie is obsessed by cars to a degree that extends way beyond being able to quote make and model stats like a baseball fan; she also can hot-wire anything — and always carries the necessary supplies for such endeavors — and knows local traffic patterns, night and day, with the facility demonstrated by taxi-driving Stan Murch, in Donald Westlake’s marvelous Dortmunder novels.

Focus: A sharply conceived caper

Focus (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, sensuality and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.27.15

Heist flicks rely on two essential ingredients: a tight, logical script that holds together even as the narrative veers in unexpectedly twisty directions; and — just as important — a sharply constructed cast of characters, played by actors who approach this material with sincerity and conviction.

Having pulled off yet another successful con, Nicky (Will Smith) and Jess (Margot Robbie)
realize that they make a pretty good team. But their increasing fondness for each other, on
a personal level, threatens the objectivity that's essential in their nefarious line of work...

In other words, actors who don’t preen from one scene to the next, undercutting the tension and suspense we desire from the genre.

Ideal scripts, in turn, need to be clever on three levels: the core storyline — in other words, the actual caper(s) — which should be intriguing, unusual and introduced with zest; the inevitable “unexpected” glitch that complicates matters, and which the filmmakers usually expect us viewers to anticipate; and, finally, the genuinely surprising second twist, which nobody sees coming, and which leaves us nodding with admiration.

Hats off to the writing/directing team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, then, because Focus delivers on all counts. Heist thrillers are one of my favorite genres; I’ve seen scores of good ones, and therefore usually anticipate all manner of revelations, hiccups and gotchas.

And yet Ficarra and Requa startled me, with their devious, eleventh-hour eyebrow-raiser. Well done.

On top of which, they’ve assembled ideal talent, starting with smooth-as-silk Will Smith, whose every word, deed, gesture and wary expression denote career larceny. He’s perfectly cast as the sophisticated Nicky Spurgeon, a seasoned master of misdirection, who deploys and unerringly supervises a veritable squadron of sharps, pick-pockets and thieves at crowded, high-profile events such as conventions and parades.

Smith is well matched by Margot Robbie’s Jess Barrett, a frisky blonde with a sensual wiggle, who worms her way into Nicky’s crew with the sort of breathy admiration and flirty innocence that Marilyn Monroe perfected, back in the day. Robbie will be remembered as Leonaro DiCaprio’s seductively controlling wife in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, and let’s just say that she’s equally alluring here.

And just as unpredictable. Indeed, Jess wears “devious” like the slinky, skin-tight dresses into which Robbie gets poured; we can’t help wondering about her end game, from the moment she catches Nicky’s attention.

But, then, we also don’t expect him to be candid with her, so the question revolves around who’s likely to get played, and how quickly.

Meanwhile, Smith and Robbie — both dripping with sensual savoir-faire — circle each other with a playfully erotic grace that wholly eluded the characters in Fifty Shades of Grey.

Tower Heist: Quite a steal

Tower Heist (2011) • View trailer for Tower Heist
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for profanity and snarky sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.4.11


I had to check my calendar, to make sure it wasn’t 1982.

There was Eddie Murphy, as fresh, feisty and funny as he was back in 48 Hrs. and Trading Places. No preening. No mugging. No vanity turns.

Josh (Ben Stiller, far left) and his unlikely crew — from left, Mr. Fitzhugh
(Matthew Broderick), Enrique (Michael Peña), Charlie (Casey Affleck) and
Slide (Eddie Murphy) — case the luxury tower condominiums across the
street, seeking a way to evade FBI agents, police officers and regular staff
members while somehow making their way to the penthouse, where they hope
to find and steal $20 million.

Honestly, Murphy hasn’t been this entertaining in a live-action film for ... well, decades. He’s been an arrogant, self-centered glory hound for so long that I’d forgotten he could be anything else.

And Tower Heist is the perfect vehicle for this vintage, everything-old-is-new-again Eddie Murphy. In many ways, director Brett Ratner’s film even feels retro, as if it might have been made back in the 1970s or ’80s, during the glory days of heist comedies such as The Hot Rock and The Thief Who Came to Dinner.

Yep, this film is that much fun.

Ratner knows this territory, having helmed After the Sunset — a nifty, under-appreciated 2004 heist flick with Pierce Brosnan — in between Rush Hour and X-Men entries. Ratner delivers just the right breezy, light-hearted tone, while granting us a despicable villain to loathe: a guy we’re begging the heroes to take down.

More crucially, Ratner and his four writers — Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage — pay careful attention to every member of an engaging ensemble of characters. And, in the grand tradition of such storylines, they’re the most unlikely “burglars” since Dick Van Dyke oversaw an aristocratic household of larcenous servants in 1967’s Fitzwilly.

The vintage atmosphere notwithstanding, the setting is completely contemporary: a luxury New York Central Park condominium complex dubbed The Tower, where manager Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) commutes from Queens — rising at 4:30 a.m. each day — in order to ensure that every last little detail is perfect for each tenant.

That’s every detail, whether dog-sitting an elderly woman’s pampered pooch, warning a philandering husband that his wife has returned three days early from an overseas trip, or running interference as bank officials try to evict destitute former Wall Street broker Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick).

Josh also enjoys matching wits during chess games played via the Internet with investment titan Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), who lives in the penthouse, where his many pleasures include a daily swim in the rooftop pool.

Much as the tenants depend on Josh, he also is respected by his own staff: the beloved elderly doorman, Lester (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who shares old jokes with anybody who will listen; a feisty maid, Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe, well remembered from Precious), who takes guff from nobody; the evasive Miss Iovenko (Nina Arianda), clandestinely studying for the bar while insisting she’s doing no such thing; and newly hired Enrique Dev’Reaux (Michael Peña), a bellhop/elevator operator-in-training delighted to have traded up from his former position at Burger King.

Oh, yes: and Charlie (Casey Affleck), Josh’s brother-in-law, who works as The Tower’s concierge and isn’t nearly as savvy as he imagines himself.

Mad Money: Moderately amusing spare change

Mad Money (2008) • View trailer
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for mild sensuality and a fleeting drug reference
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.24.08

Although unlikely to set the world on fire, Mad Money is a breezy little caper romp that provides ample opportunity for stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes to display their light comedy chops.

Although their first score falls short of setting them up for life, Nina (Queen
Latifah, left), Bridget (Diane Keaton, center) and Jackie (Katie Holmes) become
giddy over the mere fact that the scheme worked ... and that it can be repeated.

The production values are modest, and Glenn Gers' script doesn't tread any particularly provocative ground; aside from the high-wattage cast, this is the sort of pleasant diversion that usually turns up as a made-for-TV movie ... or, back in the day, would have been the bottom half of a movie theater double- feature.

Which is not intended as condemnation. B-films with no particular pretensions often are far more entertaining than their bigger-budgeted cousins.

Perhaps most impressive is the degree to which Diane Keaton, 62 years young, carries this film; she just gets better and better. Finally content to abandon all those Woody Allen-esque behavioral quirks that became her stock-in-trade for so many years following Annie Hall, Keaton now is comfortable in a broader range of moods. Here, she's the most methodical and organized of a trio of quite unlikely bank robbers, and she's quite credible as a white-collar master criminal.

Not so credible as a mop-wielding cleaning woman, but hey, we can't have everything.

Director Callie Khouri, who won an Academy Award for writing 1991's Thelma and Louise before becoming a hyphenate and directing and scripting 2002's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, has an ear for the gal-chat that bounces between the three protagonists. Better still, all are sympathetic characters, and that's important: We're expected to identify with them, even as they turn larcenous.

But Gers' script is quite aggravating in one respect: its reliance on a flash-forward framing device that reveals, right away, that our heroes are being grilled by the cops. In other words, they've been caught, and we learn this even before we get a sense of what they'll do to attract this sort of attention.

Even clumsier is the talk-to-the-camera technique that Khouri employs a few times; this gimmick almost never works in a conventional film, and should be reserved solely for serious historical projects such as Reds.

We're thus robbed of a great deal of the story's potential suspense. There's no question of whether they'll get busted; our musings now are restricted to when and how. That's a daft artistic decision.