Almost everything about American Heist feels familiar. It often feels as though the film is just running through a set of genre obligations, filling out a checklist of all the required elements of the crime picture. While the production has clear technical chops, it isn't able to provide the movie with what it really needs: a personality. This is crime at its most generic, the film built almost entirely on what have become overwrought clichés that have little bearing on the reality of the effects of criminality.
James (Hayden Christensen) used to be a thief with his brother Frankie (Adrien Brody), but has since been trying to go straight. He's running a garage in New Orleans, and is enjoying the honest work. And then Frankie gets out of prison and comes back into his life. He quickly gets James embroiled in the schemes of a pair of career criminals to whom he owes a debt. James has no desire to get back into a life of a crime, but he's given little choice. He is forced to go along with an audacious and complicated plan to rob a bank.
The movie very much wants to be a serious crime film. It works with elements taken wholesale from some of the best examples of the genre. It is a story of the inescapability of a life of crime, making a case against a system that perpetuates the need to go beyond the boundaries of the law. It is a story of redemption, of brothers trying to do right by each other in a world that seems inherently opposed to their prosperity. These are lofty ideas, and unfortunately the film isn't nearly skilled enough to develop these ideas into something that doesn't feel goofy.
The film is lost in the details. The scene, for example, where Frankie explains what he owes his new criminal compatriots, reveals something that is played for pathos. But the scene is so dramatically overwrought that it starts to become, even though the revelation is something deadly serious. And then there's the matter of its setting. This film is nominally set in New Orleans, but there's no trace of any sort of specific regional flavor. And so none of what takes place feels like it's grounded in any sort of reality. It becomes a completely imagined portrait of criminality, bound only by the clichés of the genre.
The film's best feature is its presentation. It isn't very distinct, but there's clear talent behind the camera. Some of the budgetary limitations are evident, but for the most part the direction serves much of the action well. The same can't be said about the acting. Hayden Christensen remains as bland as ever, never matching the level of emotion that his co-actors are giving. Adrien Brody gives the role a lot, but it is all in service of an underwritten character with dubious motivations.
American Heist is a paint-by-numbers version of a crime film. Even its title feels painfully generic. There is discernable skill behind the camera, the movie looking much better than it actually is. But all that technical prowess is serving a poor script in the end. Every narrative beat feels preordained, the movie refusing to add any sort of distinctive touch to a kind of story that has been done to death. It doesn't even take advantage of its setting, one of the most unique and lively cities in the United States. The film seems to want to forego having a personality.
My Rating:
