Lift

In the spring of 1993 when i was 15 years old i was about to take on the biggest school project i have ever done at that time, I was going to paint a painting that was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh´s sunflower paintings in art class. Now, i was in no way a professional painter at this age, i still decided to pick this project myself since i really liked the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. I remember my art teacher told me that it is not easy to capture the same style as Van Gogh but she did like my choice. So i started working on this painting and i also stayed longer at the art class painting studio after school, because i really wanted to pull this off as good as i possibly could. When the painting was finally made and we had an exhibition for all art class students, my art teacher was suprised how well i have done my painting. It may not have looked exactly like a Van Gogh sunflower painting but i did manage to capture his style. I was pretty pleased with the result and kept the painting. The painting was one year later given to a friend of mine as a gift, since he really loved my painting. I could have kept it i suppose but this male friend of mine was an even bigger Vincent Van Gogh fan than me, so i felt that the painting would be in good hands. I didn´t really continue any art class after those years simply because i got interested in several other subjects but im happy i tried it and i did learn some interesting styles of art at that time. Since then i have seen paintings in Europe while i travelled to cities such as Amsterdam and London. A lot of films have been inspired by art of many different kinds, where especially heist films have been popular over the years in films such as Entrapment and The Thomas Crown Affair ( 1999 version ). I would also recommend you to check out art inspired Netflix horror thriller Velvet Buzzsaw that is clearly inspied by the art scene of Los Angeles. Speaking of Netflix we did get a new heist film this year released in early 2023 called Lift with comedian actor Kevin Hart. I didn´t really know much about this film at all so i decided to skip any trailers and check it out on Netflix anyway. Is this a surprisingly fun heist film or is Lift just as horrible as Mark Polonia´s B horror film Noah´s Shark that i unfortunately have seen?

Cyrus ( Kevin Hart), a renowned international theif, leads a heist crew that consists of Denton ( Vincent D´Onofrio ), pilot Camilla ( Úrsula Corberó ), hacker Mi-Sun ( Yun Jee Kim ), safecracker Magnus ( Billy Magnussen ), and engineer Luke ( Viveik Kalra ). They undertake two simultaneous thefts, stealing a Van Gogh painting in London while staging the fake kidnapping of renowed NFT artist N8 ( Jacob Batalon ). Cyrus points out that famous paintings rapidly increase in value after being stolen. His team sell the Van Gogh painting on the black markert for 20 milliom dollars to buy N8 NFTs. It turns out that the value of the stolen art raise in value to 89 million U.S. dollars. After being "kidnapped", N8´s NFT balooned in value to 89 million dollars. N8 decides to celebrate with the team after being promised a cut of the money. Interpol agent Abby Gladwell ( Gugu Mbatha-Raw ), a former fling of Cyrus, uncover evidence implicating Denton, in the theft and arrests him. Rather than proceed with charges against the crew, Abby´s superior, Commander Huxley ( Sam Worthington ) have an offer for the team. If they help Interpol with a heist, they will avoid prison and actually do a heist for a good reason. Interpol want to arrest billionare Lars Jorgeson ( Jean Reno ), who intends to take more money by working with the hacking group Leviathan to stage a massive flood in Europe. Cyrus and his team agree to work with Interpol to trick Lars by taking his shipment of gold that´s being taken from his vault in London and flown to Leviathan´s bank in Zurich.

I have to say that usually im not the biggest fan of every heist film released, simply because so many of them looks almost the same or doesn´t really bring anything interesting. One of the better ones is definetely Ocean´s Eleven from director Steven Soderbergh that was very charming thanks to the amazing cast of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Casey Affleck and many more. It is definetely one of those heist films i would highly recommend. When it comes to the Netflix heist comedy Lift we also get a great cast here other than Kevin Hart. You have legendary actor Vincent D´Onofrio ( who i especially remember from the 2012 psychological horror film Chained ), Jean Reno, Sam Worthington, Gugu Mbatha-Raw ( you have to see her in the 2016 drama Free States Of Jones ) and many more. When you have a great cast like this you know at least that there are many talented actors involved. The question is do their characters match well in a heist comedy? I am not going to lie and say this film works just as well as the heist comedy classic Ocean´s Eleven, it´s not even close as good as that film. However, if you just take this film for what it is and don´t compare this film too much with other films in this genre there are details i enjoy about Lift. Let us begin with the heist plot itself and at first it may look like another heist, but there is a twist in this film where the heist is actually much more complicated than just another heist. I think this is the right way to go if you want to do something with this genre, since the plot would be far too predicatble. There is a lot of technology used in this film and Lift manage to stay modern while including classic ingredients as well. I also think that most of the cast does a great job, especially the chemistry between Kevin Hart and actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw. You are never bored with Lift since they keep the energy going on a steady line. Anything negative to say? Perhaps it would be that legendary actor Jean Reno should have had more screen time. I feel like his so called evil character Jorgenson have far too little screen time in this film. Director F. Gary Gray ( who directed one of my personal favourite Gerard Butler films Law Abiding Citizen ) deliver a heist film that´s entertaining for all ages of the family to enjoy. Lift may not do anything groundbreaking but knows what audience it was made for and that´s good enough for me to recommend this film. Oh and if anyone let me fly one of their private jets i would happily do so, i promise not to steal any art, i just want to make a fancy entrance at Starbucks.

Rating: DDD