Bullet Points: The Hurricane Heist

The mid to late 90’s had a real hard on for inclement weather-related action movies. 1996 saw the introduction of the massive roaring tornados in Twister and Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman got involved in an armored car heist in Hard Rain. I had no idea how much I enjoyed those types of movies at the time. It’s true what they say; “You don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone.” The Hurricane Heist came and went from theaters without so much as a raised eyebrow from me. It’s rare that I get to the movies for anything, let alone a movie involving a severe storm. But, my past love of Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt running from that screaming twister brought me right back to 1996. Let’s see if The Hurricane Heist can live up to my lofty expectations of madness.

Synopsis: Thieves attempt a massive heist against the U.S. Treasury as a Category 5 hurricane approaches one of its Mint facilities.

• Daddy Noooo: Much like the poor father of Helen Hunt in Twister, the father of our main characters in The Hurricane Heist lose their dad to a massive storm when they were kids. Not only does the storm rage through and cause their daddy’s death, but it also makes a wild skull-looking shape as it hovers over the kids. It’s every conspiracy theorists wet dream to see a skull-shaped cloud.

• Redneck Toby: My first reaction to Toby Kebbell’s character being introduced is to immediately scowl at his accent. British actors seem to get so many roles these days but that doesn’t mean that I have to enjoy listening to their bullshit Southern accents. Maybe I should record my British accent for 90 minutes…that’ll teach’em.
• Non-Lethal Heist: The bad guys attempt the heist on the US Treasury during the hurricane of the century. Casey Corbin (played by Maggie Grace) is the comic book named ATF agent and hero of the movie. She isn’t present during the attack on the facility, which was very surprising in its lack of deaths. They use some special tranquilizer guns that take immediate effect. It makes for a far less convincing assault on the Treasury building but they do get to use some interesting sound effects for the tranq guns.

• Tough Girl Maggie: Grace is an ATF agent who becomes the hero of the story. She teams up with a meteorologist named Will played by Toby Kebbell. She can handle a piece and he can describe the effects of high winds during a storm. They’re like a match made in heaven.
• Not just pissing in the wind: There’s nothing like having a very important conversation while taking a leak. This might be the first action movie I’ve seen in a while where the characters eat and empty their bladders during the film.

• Quite the breeze: A hostage exchange goes awry but we get a wild scene including some characters getting sucked out of a building and dangling on the end of a rope in the strong winds of the hurricane. It’s cool and all but it doesn’t even come close to the Captain America level toss that Kebbell makes when he launches a pile of hubcaps into the wind.
• Road Rash: I’ve heard of road rage but I’ve never heard of road stupidity. The brothers hatch a plan to stop the thieves as they escape the storm on the slowest moving trucks in the history of heist escapes. The scene lasts for an uncomfortable amount of time as they gingerly move their way to the front of the line. Is no one in a hurry in this movie?
• Riders on the Storm: As you might expect from a Rob Cohen directed movie, there are plenty of driving scenes in The Hurricane Heist. They treat the storm like it’s an impending doom but hardly ever rush to get out of the way of it. That is, until the finale. That sees the heroes and villains both speeding (55 mph?) down the freeway trying to get away from the massive wall of storm coming their way. The skull returns, screams at them, and then sulks in the background as they finally put the peddle to the floor and speed away at the end. I have to admit…it was a lame finish.

The Verdict: I like the idea of The Hurricane Heist better than the execution. I think that Hard Rain is a far superior movie to this one in both action and characters. The bad guys never seem very smart or very bad. Maggie Grace is the best character in the movie. She’s tough, smart, and committed to stopping the heist. She even throws in a little humor at the end when she jokes that they should take the money and go to Mexico. I was expecting her to swoon over Toby Kebbell’s awful accent at some point but they thankfully never spent much time trying to force the two characters into a love relationship. The movie is unique enough to watch with a few cold beers but not as good as it could have been. Consider it meh from me.