In this breakneck thriller from director-producer Michael Bay, decorated veteran Will Sharp, desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, asks for help from the one person he knows he shouldn’t — his adoptive brother Danny. A charismatic career criminal, Danny instead offers him a score: the biggest bank heist in Los Angeles history: $32 million. Will can’t say no with his wife’s survival on the line.
Jake Gyllenhaal is great at being a horrible person. In this film, the talented actor is chameleon-like with his effervescent demeanor and has just enough grace and destructive nature to build you up and tear you down in the same breath. In this role, Jake stars as Danny Sharp, one half of a pair of unlikely brothers who grew up in the same home together and then drifted apart when Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) decided he wanted to change courses from being a high-stakes bank robber and choose another path that included settling down to raise a family and make an honest living. When Will reaches out to Danny, he is seeking to find a means to finance a vital surgery for his wife as he is down on his luck and can’t seem to keep a steady job.When they meet up, Danny has the perfect job lined up and doesn’t give Will enough time to think about it as it is scheduled to take place that night. Begrudgingly, Will agrees to take on the job as the payout is over $30 million, and Danny promises that absolutely nothing could go wrong as he has every detail in place. As the brothers go back and forth, bringing up various disagreements from the past, they finally decide to take one more chance on each other to walk away from the bad stuff for the rest of their lives.
Danny’s airtight plan to take the millions from the bank and walk away from it all catches a snag when a couple of rookie police officers decide to play a flirting game with one of the bank tellers at the same time that Danny’s robbery is underway. While one of the officers is in the bank making a case for himself, the other officer is outside helping the getaway driver by giving him a boost after the getaway truck stalls. Before too long, the flawless plan starts to fall apart at the seams, and when someone in the bank tries to be a hero, Danny’s team has to fall back, regroup and find another way out of the bank than was originally planned. As the stakes get higher, Danny and Will have to develop better options as their exit strategy becomes less feasible. Before too long, bullets began to fly, and the only way out is via an ambulance that ends up transporting the rookie cop inside after he got shot.
The film tugs at the emotional heartstrings when the ambulance drivers become an integral part of the getaway plan. When EMT Scott (Colin Woodell) gets tossed out as collateral damage, EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez) becomes emotionally distraught as she is torn between trying to save her own life versus the cop’s life. When a plan to escape backfires on her, she realizes that the only way to stay alive is to stay focused on getting help for the injured cop. As the ambulance begins to transcend into an emotional bargaining center on wheels, Will has to trade places as the getaway driver and begin to use his military skills to help keep the officer alive as Danny spazzes in and out, trying to reconstruct a new getaway plan. Amid internal chaos in the ambulance, there is also external turmoil as the FBI and local officials have a territorial battle as to who has the authority and the best plan to reel in Danny, whose bank-robber father was notorious for being the best there ever was. The plot continues to thicken as the relationship between Danny and Will breaks down, and the relationship between Cam and Will seems to get stronger. In the end, Cam attempts to appeal to Will’s emotions to try to stay alive while the police chase continues like a never-ending nightmare. In the end, Will realizes that he may not get out alive and makes an endearing request for Cam to make sure that his wife is taken care of.
Director Michael Bay does an excellent job with the remake, which includes lots of high energy and emotion during the chaos, disillusionment, destruction, and redemption. Jake, Yahya, and Eiza have excellent roles, along with Keir O’Donnell (FBI Agent Anson Clark), Olivia Stambouliah (Lieutenant Dzaghig), and Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt), playing them at the depth necessary to pull the audience in and leave them emotionally charged from beginning to end. The script flows exceptionally well, and the high-level excitement is worth the price of admission from beginning to end. This gut-wrenching saga of greed versus loyalty is well thought out and excellently executed with heightened awareness, humor, and humility.
Now available on Digital HD and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, and DVD June 14th
