The Last Heist

Part of me was intrigued before watching 'The Last Heist'. It sounded interesting with a great concept. Was also rather apprehensive, considering its critical panning. Saw 'The Last Heist' anyway out of curiosity, having seen my fair share of low-budget films recently, liking a good deal of heist films and liking the idea.

'The Last Heist' started off pretty well, giving off the sense that maybe the film won't be bad and be better than it seemed. The best thing about it is Henry Rollins, whose performance is effectively skin crawling as the only halfway interesting character in the whole thing and that it wasn't in a much better film is something of a sad waste.

On a visual level, 'The Last Heist' looked shoddy and like it ran out of money and time very early on. Drab and simplistic, with haphazard editing, far from slick photography and very artificial-looking visuals on the whole. The sets are confined and simple, but the simplicity is taken to extremes and it looks limited.

The sound/soundtrack are intrusive and obvious with no variation and the direction has no sense of atmosphere or pacing, nothing to be thrilled by and nothing much engaging.

Script is awkward-sounding and ponderous, with lines that do make one cringe, even Rollins' is not much to write home about, just your standard clichéd villain lines. A lot of it is gibberish and juvenile, with a stilted improvisatory feel that shouldn't have made it past draft stages.

On top of that, the story goes through the motions with no tension, suspense or thrills, a lot of intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, implausibility and pacing so dull that it makes a reasonably short length much longer. For an idea as good as here, nothing new is done here.

Characters are basically every stereotype in the book it seems and are one-dimensional caricatures with no likeability or development and with the inability to behave logically. The acting is very poor all round other than Rollins.

In summary, very lame apart from Rollins and the ok start. 3/10 Bethany Cox

It's funny reading the 1 star reviews. Like "they didn't spend a dime to make this movie". Funny. Really do you know how much even independent films cost to make? The acting was terrible as some say. Maybe they need to watch TITANIC again. The acting was par. IT HAD ITS MOMENTS. It was good pace. Good quality and sound. They might of tried to hard with the Web effect. It definitely made the movie more interesting on what's going to happen next. Definitely worth a watch. This is just to add 10 lines even though I already have ten lines in. Good effort. Locations were simple. Primarily a old bank, a few rooms in the bank, and the exterior.

The idea of the criminal mess that's about to happen in this vault is actually good, but that's all. The acting is poor, really poor, the scenes are cheap, it ruins everything, so I can't recommend the movie, but it gets 4 stars for the idea and because of the fact I've seen worst, way worst.

This movie is a waste of time. The acting is subpar. The actors are melodramatic. The basic actions of the police are dumb. If you are taking fire you call for backup. You don't just keep delivering your poorly written lines. Get some basic firearm training for your cop actors. I saw a cop trying to throw bullets out of his gun. This movie in concept had the possibility of being really cool. Rollins did a great job of being creepy but the mess going on around him really wrecked his performance. I would say as long as you don't pay a dime to watch this movie aka wait till it hits Netflix. Then it is worth a couple hrs of your time.

In the main, cardboard characters collide with wooden acting.

That said, Henry Rollins demonstrates that he can overcome the obstacle of ropey material and still deliver a decent performance. What a shame he don't recognise ropey material in the first instance. Dressed like an undertaker, he does a capable job of playing the creepy, serial killer. Giving the best performance of all he elevates himself above cliché.

The story doesn't really hold together. In places, purpose-wise some of the characters' actions don't make any sense. They place themselves in harm's way to achieve no, apparently, useful goal. Both the good guys and the bad guys seem to be trying to trip themselves up in places.

A good heist, in the movies at least, should be tight and methodical, think Heat (1995). They get in, get rich and get away. Most robbbers don't want to run into the police and get caught. Presumably. These guys take all day. There is no sense of impending deadline, so there's no tension.

Conflict be shouldn't delivered in a way that makes characters unsympathetic. The robbers swear and gesticulate at one other too often to seem mature enough to be professional. Acting like juvenile delinquents makes them even more unsympathetic. This carry-on produces a sense of conflict but an irksome one.

I could go on but it's too depressing.

Overall, this lacks sympathetic characters and, because you cannot care about any of the characters, any real tension. It's slow, clumsy and clichéd. Television does it better.