First off, let me apologize for not seeing and reviewing this sooner. Second, there will be mild spoilers ahead. You are forewarned.
In a small town, a hurricane causes mayhem and destruction. A father and his two sons attempt to outrun it in the family’s tow truck. As they become stuck, the father puts his sons in a house for safety. Before he can unstuck his truck, the hurricane closes in, a skull shape comes out of it before the truck disappears and the house starts tumbling. Now if this doesn’t sell you on seeing the film, the rest of the story takes place in present day during a heist at a federal reserve happening under the cover of a massive hurricane stronger than the one in the opening. Good guys and bad guys face off under this epic hurricane.
Written by Scott Windhauser and Jeff Dixon, based on a story by Anthony Fingleton and Carlos Davis, and directed by Rob Cohen, The Hurricane Heist feels like they tried to cram as much into a singled film about a heist in a hurricane as they could. This leads to a film that is completely bonkers, ridiculous, and highly entertaining. Now, to be clear, this film is not one of the great ones, but it’s way more fun than it has any right to be. The characters are a bit generic and either predictable or ridiculous, but they are part of this nonsensical story so no matter what they say or do, it makes sense within the confines of the film. The story goes in quite a few directions and locations, giving the film its epic feeling.
The cast here needs to be given props for doing the best they could with what must have been one hell of a crazy script. No matter what happens around or to them, the actors and actresses stay serious and do not ham it up (at least not too much). They all do the best they can with the material given, that being said, a few stand out. Maggie Grace as Casey does decent work but it does feel like she is playing her character as others we’ve seen before from her. She plays Casey with a good amount of attitude and does keep serious and cool when shit hits the fan. Working with her through most of her scenes is Toby Kebbell as Will. Kebbell also does all he can with the material but he does look like he knows he’s in a very “special” film. Some of his work here feels a bit like how Brandon Lee’s performance in the delightfully awful Laser Mission comes off, minus the breaking of the fourth wall. Playing his brother Breeze who is basically a functional alcoholic is Ryan Kwanten. Sporting some yellow bleached hair, an odd wardrobe, and speaking in a mostly Southern accent, he gives what can be called an interesting performance. It’s not bad in any way, it just feels a bit off for the usually good actor. Playing the lead bad guy working against them I s Ralph Ineson as Perkins as an Irish transplant looking to get a better retirement plan. He does the master planner of the heist park look like it should work and makes sense. Also interesting to watch are Ben Cross as the scene-stealing Dixon and Melissa Bolona as the oddly over-dressed Sasha who comes off a bit ditzy for some reason when her part seems like it should require more aplomb. The cast as a whole takes their work seriously and do the best they can with the crazy scenes, set-ups, and lines they have to work with.
The film truly gets to be a grand spectacle thanks to a ton and half of CGI. To achieve its hurricanes and the aforementioned hurricane skill) as well as other effects, the production hired a slew of visual effects companies, which led to a ton of effects on screen which thankfully look coherent throughout the film. Unfortunately, that does mean that the hurricanes do not look exactly real and the skull (yes, obsessed here) looks like something out of The Mummy Returns which may very well add to the film for some viewers.
Shooting the scenes these effects were added to be done in a careful manner. One of the things that keep The Hurricane Heist above a SyFy Original level is the cinematography by Shelly Johnson. His work here does create some beautiful and visually interesting scenes at times. Of course there are scenes that no amount of proper framing could save from being a visual nightmare. However, even those seem to be shot with purpose.
The Hurricane Heist is one of those films that need to be seen to be believed. It’s definitely a “so bad, it’s good” kind of film. After that opening, it’s hard to believe it will get more outrageous or better from there, but it does! The middle part of the film has a good part that’s mostly about the heist but even that has some ridiculous sequences including one at a mall that is just too much for words. The Hurricane Heist is one of those films that saw other crazy actions films (like the last few Fast & Furious films) and said “hold my beer” before throwing a bunch of non-sense at a wall and keep everything that sticks and then some. It’s a bit of a mess, but it’s a fun and entertaining mess to watch.
As it only has an about 2-week long theatrical release, it should be out soon(ish) on disc and/or video-on-demand.