Netflix is so hell-bent on constantly putting their most saleable artists in different roles that they have made even Kevin Hart feel dead and boring. The comedian, who is often seen in front of the screen and stage as the laughing, giggling, and often witty ‘small guy,’ has been cast as a master thief with a team. The kind of suave, smooth-talking, and charming character that F. Gary Gray’s ‘Lift’ wants him to play is tailor-made for someone with a personality – a backstory or a character tick that would make them stand out. Hart’s rendition of Cyrus is so flat that all it induces in an audience is a pure sense of ‘cringe.’
But but, that is the least of its problems. The problems here start right off the bat. The opening heist sequence where Cyrus and his teammates steal, oops ‘Lift’ an NFT is supposed to come off as the world’s first case of someone stealing something new, but it is so blatantly unimaginative and straight-forward that a kid drawing with his different pens on a Sunday morning could do better. To top that off, the film thinks that casting Úrsula Corberó (Money Heist), Vincent D’Onforio (Daredevil, Echo), Sam Worthington (Fractured) & Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki) could bring some kind of thrill to the proceedings, but all they do it stand around for the plot to kick in.
I mean, if this is like a throwback to the early millennium heist thrillers like ‘The Italian Job, ’ director F. Gary Gray misses out on the one thing that made them so entertaining, in spite of being implausible – characters that had something truly unique about them. With ‘Lift,’ the only character that remains even remotely memorable is Magnus, played by Billy Magnussen. He is the only one who doesn’t feel too self-serious about doing a mid-air heist. His portrayal as the vault-breaker is unhinged, and that’s exactly what everyone else needed to be in order for the movie to even be passable. But no, we get a lot of other ingredients that are supposed to make us feel something for them.
Cyrus and his band of misfits team up with Interpol, more specifically with Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Abby. The film establishes that there is a brief history between the two, but every time Abby and Cyrus or Gugu and Kevin share the screen together, there is absolutely zero chemistry between them. Anyway, Interpol and the good-vibes-only crew of thieves team up for a heist that will involve them flying a jet plane in parallel with a 777 passenger flight so that they can steal some gold away from a wealthy terrorist Jorgensen (Jean Reno) who can flood and kill people in different countries if not stopped. As interesting as that can sound to people, ‘Lift’ is a movie that fails to either create some kind of emotional weight out of that premise or provide thrills that would make you sit tight. To add to that ordeal, the film, which is sold as an action-comedy, has literally zero jokes.
Overall, if you wish to watchlist ‘Lift’ expecting some fun I am sure you can do better than this Kevin Hart mid-air heist thriller that is both unimaginative and bland.
