Way Down

I wanted to like this Spanish heist thriller a lot as I adore the director's REC and SLEEP TIGHT, but sadly there are too many problems here for it to work. Which is a surprise as heist films are usually easy to make and enjoy. I was put off by Freddie Highmore, who seems to be channelling the autistic doctor he plays in another show, and the female Burn Gorman lookalike fails to impress too. The old timers do better but are given little to do. The vault itself is ridiculously designed and veers more into fantasy than real life, and the science is deeply flawed too. This is a film that works best when the thrills are realistic and there are some good suspense bits, just not enough of them.

Freddie Highmore, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Sam Riley, Famke Janssen, and Liam Cunningham star in "The Vault," also titled "Way Down."

A young genius engineer, Thom (Highmore) is brought in by a wreck recovery operation, run by a man named Walter, to break into the Bank of Spain's safe to steal a lost treasure which, after Walter's incredible recovery work, will go to the British government if it isn't stolen in time. There are no blueprints and a tight security system.

Once Thom devises a plan, the team will have 105 minutes to complete it, while Spain is immersed in the 2010 Football World Cup final, when the security system will face the crowd of 500,000 watching a giant screen.

I love heist movies, and this one, completely outlandish, made for fun and exciting viewing and was highly entertaining.

When you're dealing with heist films, criticizing them for not being realistic spoils the fun. If you want realism, watch a documentary.

It was good, really well directed and shot, but the story is nothing new. It's basically a tamed down shortened movie version of Money Heist, but not nearly as cleverly or suspensefully written. Plus I feel Freddie Highmore was a poor casting choice. I kept expecting some dumb equations to pop up like they do in the lame TV series he's in, The Good Doctor. Plus he still had that lost-in-space duh look.

This is the type of movie that, if you wanted to analyze it in detail, you could probably find quite a number of "flaws." But doing that would miss the point entirely. It is just an entertaining heist movie, the target is an impenetrable bank vault in Madrid. It s set during the 2010 soccer World Cup where Spain beat The Netherlands 1-0 and Spanish crowds were cheering in the streets and watching on a giant TV screen.

The movie starts with a British ocean exploratory team finding loot on a Spanish ship that sank in 1645, but Spanish authorities intercept them on open water. One piece was of particular interest and the heist in question was planned to recover it. The biggest problem was figuring out the heist.

Freddie Highmore (about 28), who also produced, plays a 22-yr-old college graduate who already had established a reputation for coming up with genius ideas. His job would be to figure out the impossible. Being basically a good, honest guy his only attraction to the job was to solve the impossible. The challenge.

My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library. It is scripted and acted in such a way to create tension at a number of places, the viewer wonders "How will they get out of this one?" Sort of reminded us of "Mission Impossible."

It runs almost 2 hours but it never seemed too long. Good entertaining movie.

There is absolutely no reason to give this movie so much hate. Could it be better? Yes. But it could've been a lot worse. It's fun and entertaining. The acting is good. It's a story we've seen before, but it has a nice twist and a good pace. The problem with most people watching movies these days, is they've forgotten how to enjoy a simple movie that doesn't have a 300 million dollar budget. Stop being so miserable.