Kevin Hart plays Cyrus, a master thief, in the undercooked heist film, “Lift,” directed by F. Gary Gray. Written by Daniel Kunka, the film consists of lavish locations such as Tuscany and Venice and elaborate sets including a speedboat chase in the opening scene, but are not imbued with any sense of suspense or danger.
The film is based on a cartoonish villain, eco-terrorist Lars Jorgensen (Jean Reno), who wants to game the stock market by paying shady hackers $500 million in gold bars to disrupt the world's water supply. Beyond the windfall Jorgensen will make by shorting water company shares, it's unclear what he gains from this elaborate ruse.
An Interpol agent, Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), recruits Cyrus to rob the airliner carrying the gold bars before any damage can be done. Although Abby and Cyrus are old flames, the film also doesn't take on any romantic steam, thanks to what passes for jokes. “I was looking at the questions that weren't being asked,” Cyrus tells Abby. “Too cool for school, huh?” she says.
Although he attempts to play Cyrus in the mold of Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible” or Robert Redford in “Sneakers” (two similarly framed heist movies), as a leading man, Hart is stuck in neutral. You never understand why Abby would fall for him or why his team, made up of broad characters who seem to function solely as sources of creaky jokes, is so steadfast. Hart possesses neither Cruise's charisma nor Redford's charm to take on this action-movie mechanic, a failure that demonstrates what happens when character actors are told they're movie stars.
Raise
Rated PG-13 for cheap violence and sexless romance. Duration: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch it on Netflix.
