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Movie Review: 'The Hurricane Heist'

The definition of dumb fun is 'The Hurricane Heist.'

By Sean PatrickPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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The Hurricane Heist stars Maggie Grace as Casey: A wild child, ace treasury agent tasked with protecting a bunch of retired U.S. currency as it is sent to a facility to be incinerated. This task is complicated by an incoming hurricane which has the roads clogged by people on the run from the very Carolina coastal town that she is headed for.

What Casey doesn't know is that treachery is afoot. Her very own partner, Perkins (Ralph Ineson), has conspired with hackers and crooked townsfolk to steal the money she's accompanying to the incinerator. The plan involves using the massive hurricane as a distraction to make the money quietly disappear.

What the bad guys didn't prepare for were a pair of stubborn brothers, Will, a meteorologist, and the ironically nicknamed Breeze (Ryan Kwanten). Though they have been at odds since a childhood when their father died in a tornado, Will wants Breeze to leave town but the stubborn younger brother refuses.

They wind up in the middle of a pitched battle between Casey and Perkins as Casey escapes with the codes needed to finish Perkins's plot and his lackey's go searching for her in the midst of the storm. Taking up with Will and Breeze, Casey and Will will use his souped-up, storm chasing SUV to elude Perkins while Breeze puts his military training to use getting inside the money facility to slow down the plot from there.

Good God is The Hurricane Heist a riot. It was directed by Rob Cohen who directed the original The Fast and the Furious with a similar eye toward the absurd. Cohen directs The Hurricane Heist at high camp with a glorious self-awareness, and a consistently hilarious wink. Cohen is not the most talented director, but he doesn't pretend to be an artist.

Cohen cleverly stacks absurdity on top of absurdity in Hurricane Heist. This leads to some increasing gloriously goofy pieces including Will using hubcaps as deadly frisbees in the hurricane force winds. Then there is a sequence set inside of a mall with a glass ceiling and parachutes used to remarkably silly and wonderfully fun effect. None of this sequence is remotely realistic but because the film establishes such a silly tone and because the film is so incredibly audacious I found it hard not to get excited, even giggly while enjoying the remarkable stupid on display.

Then there is the ending, the most ludicrously fun and funny sequence in any movie in 2018. It's bizarrely stupid but glorious in the purity of its insanity. The final moments finds our heroes attempting to chase down the bad guys and outrun the hurricane all at once while driving semi-trucks. These scenes are awesomely, mindlessly fun.

Much credit for why The Hurricane Heist succeeds, where other so-bad-it's-good movies fail, goes to this cast. Maggie Grace, Toby Kebbell, and Ryan Kwanten appear to be having a load of fun with the silliness of The Hurricane Heist. Too many similar bad movies fail to reach the level of fun bad because you can sense the cast is as miserable making the movie as we are watching it.

There is nothing like that happening in The Hurricane Heist. Our three heroes are having an absolute blast with the absurdity of this movie. They know they are in a movie called The Hurricane Heist and they are loving every silly minute of it. Grace is especially loving being the rogue good cop throwing her body into every fight scene, every silly stunt, is delightful.

The same could be said of Ryan Kwanten who appears to live for every bit of the goofiness he gets to be a part of. From using football maneuvers to outsmart bad guys, to the final scene when he's leaping from semi to semi as a hurricane with the freaking monster face is rolling up behind it, Kwanten is lapping up every scenery sucking moment.

The Hurricane Heist is not a good movie, it's so bad it's good. The Hurricane Heist is so bad it's good in the best ways. Rob Cohen has crafted one of the most fun movies of 2018 through attitude and absurdity. Part of what makes the film lovable is Cohen's lack of skill but the approach is so unpretentiously silly that The Hurricane Heist becomes like a shaggy, lovable dog, eager to please if not all that bright.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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