This movie captures various themes and genres. At some point or another the movie is a heist movie set against the backdrop of the Rodney King riots of 1992. Along the way it's also a coming of age movie, an exploration of father-son relationships, and race relations.
Having seen the movie in a theater, to be fair, the movie has the cast, look, and feel of a better than average straight-to-streaming movie. The fact that it was given a "limited theatrical release" might just be giving the movie too much credit.
Tyrese Gibson, who plays a convincing father and "OG Merc" back in the day, finds himself thrust in the middle of a heist of valuable platinum bars, led by Ray Liotta (in his final film) at his villainous best.
What on first blush is an engaging heist movie rapidly evolves into a movie extremely derivative of "Die Hard" - nearly plot point by plot point. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does become quite formulaic.
Of course, the heist "crew", as always, includes "the muscle guy", the "smart" leader guy (Liotta), and the "clueless reluctant impressionable" guy (almost always related to the boss/leader) that you wonder why he was even brought along on the job in the first place.
A key plot point is that Gibson is bent on bringing his son to his workplace factory after-hours to "distance themselves" from the riot mayhem. What were they going to do? Spend the night there? Why not drive out of town altogether? I felt that was a fairly weak contrivance.
If you're a fan of Gibson and/or Liotta I think the movie would meet your expectations. Giving the movie a "10" (as others have done) is inexplicably generous.
