Final Heist (2024)

I'd been meaning to do this one for some time, mostly because it was written by Richard Pierce, who's been a guest on the pod and friend of the site. Also it stars DTVC favorite Tim Abell, and we always enjoy seeing him in a film too.

Final Heist is about a crew of bank robbers who plan to quit after one last score, but one of their crew, Liev, (Justin Chu Cary) gets shot and arrested, so the other members, including Willa, his partner and mother of his child (Camila Banus) agree to split and not have any contact. Six years later though, their daughter Sofia (Gabriela Merid) is diagnosed with a rare heart condition, and the only way she can survive is if she gets a partial donor. Her father would be a great match, except he's in a coma after the prison warden (Tim Abell) had him beaten up. So the only thing to do is get the rest of the gang back together: Hailey, Flynn, and Kenzie (Jasmine Shanise, Virginia Ma, and Shonte Akognon respectively) for one final heist--to steal heart tissue they need to save Sofia. Is this gang up to the task after all those years not doing any heists though?

This wasn't a bad deal. It hits all the spots of the usual heist movie, only the crew is all diverse women, and the heist is stealing heart tissue instead of money. How many times have we seen a heist movie with a Cam Gigandet in the lead and a crew of tatted-up spiky-haired white guys that are a mix of Randall Scandal mainstays and former UFC fighters, where they need to do one last job because Gigandet's character's daughter needs money for an operation? Because this movie is giving me something different, I have to give points for that. Then they have Tim Abell as the baddie, and while he's only in the movie at the beginning and the end, he does such a great job in those early moments that he casts a shadow over the rest of the film that we want our heroes to overcome. The movie's not perfect though. For example, an undercover reporter working with Liev is mentioned, but that character never materializes; and then at the end we need to make a lot of Bob Beamon leaps of faith when it comes to heart surgery. The other thing is the movie drags a bit in the middle, but that, along with the heart surgery leaps of faith, is mitigated by the fact that we only have an 83-minute runtime, which always helps. I think if you're looking for a nice time killer, this will do the trick, especially since you can get it on Tubi.

Because we know Rich and have had him on the podcast, you're probably expecting this paragraph to include inside information, like me asking where his original script may have deviated from the finished project, because the movie also lists the director as a co-writer, so he probably took Rich's original script and altered it to fit the realities of their production. But because I watched this the night before I'm writing the review, I didn't get a chance, so maybe we'll be able to ask him on a future podcast episode. Also, I thought I'd given Rich a tag for the other film of his we'd reviewed, Sector 4: Extraction, but for some reason I didn't, so we've corrected that mistake here. This film is very different from Sector 4: Extraction, which was more of a vanity project for the star, DTVC Hall of Famer Olivier Gruner, this is more you're classic heist film with the unique elements I listed above. Either one from a writer's standpoint is fantastic to have made though, and it's really cool to see all the credits Rich has on IMDb now. In terms of future ones to get that tag number up, there's plenty of stuff available, so we look forward to watching more of those, and having him back on the pod as well!

The other name readers of the site will know from this is DTVC favorite Tim Abell. He gives us the performance we'd want from a Charles Napier in a 90s film, the kind of baddie who doesn't need a lot of screen time to affect the proceedings, and the reality is I can't think of many current actors who can do what Abell does here. His baddie is this perfect mix of sinister and smarmy, and he plays it so well in the few scenes he has in the beginning of the film, that his presence looms over everything else even if we don't see him again until the denouement. It's the kind of thing that takes something that's more paint-by-numbers like this, and makes us root for the protagonists, because no matter what, we don't want to see that guy win. A masterclass on how to play a great baddie, especially with limited screen time.

You may have noticed there's no genre tag for this review, only the "prison" subgenre--and even that's a stretch, because this isn't exactly a prison film. That's because I couldn't think of a proper genre for it to fit into. IMDb said "Crime" and "Thriller," which are two genres I don't have tags for, but also, "Thriller" doesn't really fit for this, and what the hell is "Crime" as a genre? For the genres I have, there isn't near enough action to qualify for that; it has some offbeat moments, and the "offbeat heist" score that plays as they plan out the job is pretty ubiquitous, but I don't think it's necessarily a comedy per se; "suspense" is a genre we use, but again, going back to that ubiquitous offbeat heist score, that betrays any attempt at serious suspense, and is also a reason why I wouldn't call it a "thriller." I guess there's the subgenre of "heist" films that this fits into, and maybe I should start tagging that, but I have so many tags now that that could add a lot--like would I need "Die Hard" for a tag, or "tournament fighting" or "romp comedy"? I did a scan to see how many other movies don't have genres, and while there aren't many, there are some. For example, Dolph has two, Shark Lake, which has the "sharks" subgenre tag, and Final Inquiry, which is unique in that it also doesn't have a subgenre like "sharks" or "prison" either. 

Finally, one of the production companies working on this was MarVista Entertainment, who has been around for a bit, but browsing IMDb it looks like the only other movie of theirs we've covered was one of the Lost Boys sequels, The Thirst. Anyway, this isn't about MarVista Entertainment, it's about how the name "MarVista" makes me think of how Steven Williams said the name "Marvosa" in Bloodfist VII, which was one of the greatest things ever. As I said in my review for that, I think they added a character named "Marvosa" just so Williams could say it. I think that should be a rule at MarVista Entertainment, at least one character needs to be named "Marvosa." That would up the average reviews on IMDb for their movies by at least a point, and when you're working on tight margins with films like Tubi Originals, that point could be significant.

And with that, I'll dispense with the free advice and wrap this up. As a Tubi Original, you can currently stream this free there, which I think is a good way to go. The diverse cast and the twist on the heist film elevate it beyond the usual paint-by-numbers heist film, and the short runtime with Abell as a great baddie gets you to the church on time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30254708

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Sector 4: Extraction (2014)

Back in 2014, friend of the site Richard Pierce let us know that this film, one he did the screenplay on, would be coming out, and we had him on the podcast to tell us about it. Unfortunately not only did that episode get lost when Talkshoe had a server crash, but my unplanned hiatus ended up coinciding with the release of the film, meaning I never got around to it. When I got back into doing reviews again, and picked Assassin X for my Art Camacho post to celebrate him joining the 40 Club, I saw this under Gruner's IMDb bio and couldn't believe I still hadn't looked at it. Now it's time to right that wrong.

Sector 4: Extraction has Gruner as a mercenary (or "private military contractor" if you want to use the PC term) who takes a job in Sector 4, the most dangerous sector in Afghanistan, and he and his boys end up captured. He escapes, only to find out that his guys are still alive and being held there by Al Qaeda. His boss, Eric Roberts, is too busy chewing scenery to greenlight a trip back there to save them, so it's up to Gruner, after myriad training montages, to go back in and get his boys out. No man left behind.

This feels like a Gruner passion/vanity piece. I think whether you use the term "passion" or "vanity" determines on how you feel about it overall--or what you think of the fact that in some scenes Gruner's beard appears to have been touched up with Grecian Formula--I'm not knocking it, I have gray in my beard too, I'm just saying. It's not a traditional action film per se, it's more Gruner selling us on the fact that mercenaries aren't all the bad Blackwater stories we've heard; but also, that there is a toll that these things take on their families, and he's trying to reconcile that with his son who he's "leaving behind" as well while he does his missions, played by his real life son Nash Gruner. I think that story could have been compelling, but it was almost like they didn't want to go too far into it, and instead hit us with more training scenes. Calling them "montages" is a bit generous, I just didn't have another term for them, but they're too long for montages. The best analogy I can give is an old Family Guy sketch where Peter and Lois are watching Maude, and it's an extended version of the theme song, and Peter keeps yelling, "an then there's Maude!" These training sequences are like that, I kept saying "and next scene," but we'd reset and Gruner would go back to another drill. The thing is, with DTV, we don't know if those montage scenes were long on purpose, or if something else happened causing them to have to extend them to pad out the film. Either way, it's part of the overall vibe this film has, where you don't know if you want to call it a "passion piece" or a "vanity project," but again, I think how you see it will determine whether or not you'd like it.

Part of why this could be termed a passion/vanity project, is Gruner wrote the story, directed, produced, and acted in it. With that in mind, Gruner has done so many ones on here that we liked, and he is in the DTVC Hall of Fame, so if he wants to make a movie like this, I feel like more power to him. What does that mean for you as the viewer though? I think that's the framework you need to watch it in, you're not coming to this for Angel Town, Savate, or Nemesis, this is the movie Gruner wanted to make and the story he wanted to tell, and I do feel he's earned the goodwill to do something like this, it's just a matter of how much the elements that don't work get tedious versus us as fans supporting him in a project like that. It does straddle that line for sure.

Beyond the fact that this is a Gruner flick, as I mentioned above, the screenplay was written by one of our friends, Richard Pierce, and that more than anything is why I'm reviewing it--albeit much later than I intended! What he didn't tell us was he not only wrote the screenplay, but he also had a small part, and was associate producer. I think for all of us who do the kind of thing we do, it's a dream to be able to be involved in a film like this in even a small way, so to see him have this level of involvement was really cool. I feel bad that it took me over five years to finally make this review happen, but we're here now, and it's great to see it all. I promise the next time you need me to review something for you, it won't take so long!

One of the problems with the passion project/vanity piece, is that as a filmmaker, Gruner--or whoever does something like this--is tied to certain elements that might have been changed to make for a more compelling story. Take the aspect of the film with his son. It's his real son, and I think he wanted to add an element about how he's away from home a lot with his work, and he wants to fix that. The problem is, even if it is his real son, between the Grecian Formula and the younger ex-wife, it plays out the way we see in a lot of these films, where the lead is afraid to show his true age. The story we seldom get is the aging soldier who is coming to terms with the fact that he's not in his 20s anymore, and to that end, having an adult child who may have been born in 1990 and is now in their mid-20s, and Gruner as the father is realizing how much he missed in their lives; and maybe one of the guys he's rescuing is the young father of Gruner's real life son, and Gruner sees in the young boy the mistakes he's made, and that's the wrong he wants to right in addition to not leaving any of his men behind. The trope is too ubiquitous: lead born in the 50s/early 60s with girlfriend/wife born in the late 80s/early 90s. Get away from it, go deeper, have an ex-wife that was born the same year as you, and show us that aspect of life that we're all going to go through. As I said, I've got graying in my beard now too, it's not anything to be ashamed of, but I get why anyone would be just the same.

We haven't seen Eric Roberts since 2013, which isn't horrible when you consider from 2015 to 2019 I was on hiatus, but still, for someone with Roberts's massive IMDb bio, you'd think we'd run into another one between then and now, just based off the statistical probability. This is definitely in the realm of what Ty and Brett at Comeuppance call a "sit-down role," and while Roberts does stand from time to time, all of his scenes are in one location. There were moments where I even wondered if he shot his scenes with Gruner with Gruner, but when I saw them in the same shot I was disabused of that notion. People have pushed for Roberts to be in the Hall of Fame, and are often surprised to find out he doesn't have more films reviewed on the site. I honestly don't know why he doesn't have more films reviewed here either, but it's for that reason that he hasn't been inducted into the Hall of Fame. When I looked at his bio and the myriad films listed, one thing I realized is he doesn't do as many action movies, which we tend to skew more towards here; he also doesn't do as many like this with another established Hall of Famer. We'll see what we can do though about getting more of his stuff on here, because he's fantastic in his sit-down role in this, as he is in pretty much everything he does.

On that note, it's time to wrap this up. You can rent Sector 4: Extraction on Prime, or stream it for free here in the US on the Roku Channel. This isn't an action movie, it is more a Gruner passion/vanity project, and I think the way to determine whether or not you want to watch it, is to consider which side of the passion/vanity slash you're on. Either way though, congratulations to our friend Richard Pierce for his part in this. If anything, that was a great thing to see his name in the credits!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3099370