BY ELLIOT LINES JANUARY 19, 2024
Directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job (2003), Law Abiding Citizen), Lift takes a stacked cast and throws them into the midst of the ever growing heist movie genre. A genre which has become fairly over-saturated, and takes something quite special to stand-out. Unfortunately, although Lift isn't a bad movie, it certainly won't stick in your mind for long due to the standard formula it follows.
SYNOPSIS
A master thief is wooed by his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to pull off an impossible heist with his international crew on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.
REVIEW
There is a standardisation to heist films that seemingly all have to follow, but there are few that stand out above the rest due to their commitment to try something a little out the box. Lift however follows all the standard tropes, playing it safe with a story that actually could've been a little more adventurous. You get your standard reveal of character roles (which is the only character development), action scenes, mid-heist issues and of course the big reveal at the end. As long as you're well versed in this genre, there will be no surprises here.
The film also attempts to integrate a love element to the proceedings, however it never quite feels realistic. The two characters in question Cyrus (Kevin Hart) and Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are constantly reminding each other of "that time in Paris", which was only a couple of days, surely not enough time to develop a romance on the level the film is attempting.
Lift boasts a large cast of recognisable faces. Vincent D'Onafrio (Daredevil), Billy Magnussen (No Time To Die), Sam Worthington (Avatar), Jacob Batalon (Spider-man: No Way Home) all make an appearance of some sort. Kevin Hart is the big star here, acting alongside Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki) for the majority, but questions are to be had whether he can sell a movie on name alone. None of these performances are bad, and actually are what makes the film more watchable, but the material and script they're given to work with did make viewing testing at times.
This by no means was a bad viewing experience, at times was fairly enjoyable. However, with it's lacklustre script and story-line that followed the generic formula to the letter, Lift added nothing new to this genre making it predictable along the way.
STAR RATING
