Kevin Hart and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in F. Gary Gray Heist Film – The Hollywood Reporter

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Kevin Hart in Lift.

Christopher Barr/Netflix

The first target is an art auction in Venice. Led by their stoic, ambitious boss, Cyrus (Kevin Hart), the crew plays the heart of Netflix’s paranoid heist thriller. Lifts Prepare to have beautiful works stolen from the clutches of the one percent. This band—an effective group of tech geniuses and masters of disguise—consider themselves the cultural Robin Hood. They take from the rich to line their pockets, spoil the rich and help artists.

At the beginning of the film directed by F. Gary Gray (Straight from Compton), Cyrus heads towards a building of majestic beauty, where the auction will be held. A red carpet traces a path to the front door, and on either side of the ropes Venetians grind masks. The gun, which Gray photographed more accurately in 2003 Italian job, looks garish in this opening sequence. The light hits every surface, as if the exposure has been cranked all the way up.

That brightness doesn’t seem to bother Cyrus, who squirms around in his assigned seat while checking in with his team via microphone. When the auction begins, he’s bidding millions on an NFT by anonymous artist N8 (Jacob Batalon). There is still promise at this point Lifts As we build an understanding of the dynamics at play. Watch Cyrus, Denton (Vincent D’Onofrio), Camilla (Ursula Corbero), Magnus (Billy Magnussen), Mi-sun (Yoon Ji Kim) and Luke (Vivek Kalra) working in the room and area around the auction house who is an Interpol agent. Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). She is a superior federal agent who leads a group dedicated to tracking down and arresting Cyrus and the bandits.

Once the action begins, so do those early signs of promise. Lifts He doesn’t seem to trust viewers enough to withhold details. He’s too insecure, too eager, too eager to be mysterious. Its wiles are not so much revealed as words regurgitated by vulgar exposition. When Cyrus and his team nabbed the NFT, they also kidnapped the artist. The kidnapping – which is not as serious as it seems – causes an international uproar.

Here lies the opportunity to comment on the world of visual art underpinned by hype, and to create intrigue around a group that plays into it because stolen goods, in her experience, confer a rare status. instead of, Lifts This moment builds up so that Cyrus can walk N8 through every step of their heist and explain the group’s mission. There is no need to assume about motives, individual or collective, in… Lifts. Cyrus will explain that sooner or later. This disappointing realization forced this reviewer to rewatch a classic film (Soderbergh’s Ocean XI remake) to remind itself that the genre can be fun.

The staged seizure of the N8 leads to the real drama of Lifts. After a conversation with her colleague Huxley (Sam Worthington), the director of Interpol’s more “serious” division, Abby is forced to recruit Cyrus’ crew. Huxley sets his sights on a bigger target: Jorgenson (Jean Reno), a billionaire who profits from manufactured destruction. He recently made a deal with hacker group Anonymous to tap into networks around the world and cause mass floods. More explanatory clues point to the plan: Abby must convince Cyrus and his associates to steal millions of dollars in gold from a flight without Jorgenson finding out.

If you’re still involved at this point in the movie (all within the first 20 minutes) you’ll also discover that Abby and Cyrus have a history, which complicates their current relationship. It should also add tension to the dynamic, but this is virtually undetectable. For all their talents, Hart and Mbatha-Raw are a mismatch, and Daniel Konka’s screenplay doesn’t give their relationship enough time to develop. Abby and Cyrus’ love story lives on in interpretive flashbacks to their childhood and a whirlwind week together.

There is also unnecessary formality in Hart’s representation of an internationally wanted man. The actor has been leaning toward more dramatic roles lately, but his performance here is tinged with a studied smoothness that strips his character of the natural playfulness it requires. (Compare this to his portrayal of a single father in fatherhoodwhich found him using his comedic roots to anchor the performance.)

Cyrus agrees to help Interpol in exchange for immunity, and the crew sets to work on their biggest heist yet. As with all major robberies, there is a level of impossibility and risk to their lives. Motivated by a future free of surveillance, Cyrus and his fellow thieves formulate a plan to recover the gold from the plane, bring Jorgenson to the authorities, and save lives.

A rush of intrigue gives Lifts A necessary injection of excitement. Even if the technology is heading toward the unreal, Gray is a skilled enough director that these scenes of technology acquisition and tricky execution add a slight sense of urgency to the proceedings. Not enough to memorize Liftsbut it makes the movie seem a little less ridiculous.