Lift comes from a place where you’ve seen the Ocean’s Eleven premise so often, you no longer question it. Of course there’s an international team of super criminal thieves. Of course they can steal anything from anywhere. Of course they can do this even when the authorities know where, when, and how it’s going to happen. There’s a built-in hubris to a film like this that the viewer either accepts willingly or changes the channel.
Meh, I’m good.
The kingpin here is Cyrus (a rather sedate Kevin Hart). In the opening, the Cyrus gang penetrates a Venice auction and manages to steal an artist. Well, that’s new. The artist, N8, created an NFT based on a Van Gogh painting, which team Cyrus also steals, simultaneously, from London. After “kidnapping” N8, the artwork in question ballooned from $20M to $89M. As Cyrus had bought the Van Gogh related NFT, he and N8 split a hefty profit.
If only any of this could be believed, it would be delightful.
Naturally, Interpol is onto Team Cyrus and instead of capturing and detaining the crew, leverages evidence of their hand in the Lift to capture a really bad guy.
Because, of course.
And the I
nterpol agent in charge, Abby Gladwell (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), has a history with Cyrus.
Because. Of course.
And Cyrus must have a history with the evil target, right? No? Lift, you’re not uplifting me.
So the film is essentially a bunch of good guy bad guys taking down a worse guy by manipulating things that cannot be manipulated, capisce?
Just wait until you get to the part where they have to convince air traffic control to follow the wrong plane. Tell you what, if you get to the point in your life where you can swap jets to fool air traffic control, you have enough money. That’s a good sign that you have enough money. You can stop.
Lift is entirely amiable fluff. It’s people we care about a little doing things we care about a little towards ends we care about a little. It’s not quite as good as Army of Thieves, but still enjoyable enough to entertain you while you’re not really paying attention. I feel like this is the new standard for streaming: “can I follow the plot while I remain on my phone? Will I follow the plot while I remain on my phone?”
Sure.
A heist team went after a score
Then Interpol made them do more
Will you be believin’
This amount of thievin’?
Not enough to make your head get sore
Rated PG-13, 107 Minutes
Director: F. Gary Gray
Writer: Daniel Kunka
Genre: Light
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Caper fiends
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Interpol
