An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Gerard Butler, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I have to admit that the damned thing was not bad after all. Sure, it is obvious that it was vastly inspired by ‘Heat’ (they even ended with a similar big shoot-out) but they could have used worst inspirations and it turned out to be a decent copycat after all. Indeed, the action and heist scenes were pretty good but, above all, both crews, cops and robbers, were really charismatic and, pretty much like with ‘Heat’, you were never know for which group you should root which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, even though it seemed that they already took care of the heavy lifting, I’m afraid they still messed up some other things. It didn’t mind the rather long running time, in the contrary, but there were plenty of rather useless scenes though. Some scenes like the one with 50 Cent’s having his daughter going to the Prom was a good example but, at least, it was harmless. On the other hand, it was a big mistake to include a couple of scenes involving Gerard Butler’s character struggling with his family situation. Indeed, they should have gone more in the direction of ‘Training Day’ showing that this team of ‘super’ cops was not badass but also simply bad and maybe even worse that this team of ‘super’ robbers. They also added a ‘Usual Suspects’ twist ending but it had actually very little added value and it was basically another rather pathetic attempt to make this movie look smarter than it actually was. And yet, in spite of its flaws, it turned out to be a decent action flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.