Who's In It: Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon, Michael Ealy, Idris Elba, T.I., Jay Hernandez, Zoe Saldana, Johnathon Schaech, Paul Walker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste
The Basics: I think I just watched the first-ever dramatic feature from the guys who made Vampires Suck. It was called Heist Movie and it was about this heist where everything you see is something else you've seen before. And then I fell asleep and when I woke up some guys were shooting at each other. One of them was Paul Walker and one of them was Hayden Christensen but I can't tell them apart so don't ask me which one was which.
What's The Deal: In a recent interview, rapper/co-star T.I. compared this movie to Ocean's Eleven. He wishes. Because it isn't stylishly made, it's just well decorated. It isn't smartly written, it's just a series of crime events and car movement. It's not charismatic, just populated with famous guys posing as players in nice suits (and one idiotic porkpie hat for Christensen). They're not criminal artists or people who love the thrill of the crime, they just want to get more stuff. No one's asking a low-priority contemporary robbery movie to be Rififi, but there's such a thing as striving for some kind of quality that will set you apart from the anonymous pack. And no one thought to do that here.
Not Done Complaining Yet: The director/cinematographer/editor conspire to give you a seizure even when it's not warranted. They just like to swing that camera around and then cutcutcutcutcutcutcut until you give up and wait for them to quit it. It doesn't make things look cool. It just makes the movie make less sense. And it needs all the sense it can get. This isn't old man grouchiness either; I've seen My Bloody Valentine perform live so I know what it's like to have bright strobes assaulting my retinas. At least those guys do it for a cool sensory-punishment reason.
Made So Long Ago, And Seen Its Release Delayed For So Long, That: Zoe Saldana, who has very little to do besides be The Girl, had time to go out and be in Star Trek and Avatar and become more famous than all her co-stars here. There must have been something contractual about an obligatory theatrical release instead of the DVD shunning it deserves, because this thing's been gathering dust since before Chris Brown hit Rihanna.
One Funny Scene: Matt Dillon, with his little daughter in the car with him, gets involved in a four-wheeled chase sequence with Idris Elba and Paul Walker. The film itself makes no comment on that move as a parenting decision.