Movie Review ~ Lift

Growing up, whenever we would visit my grandmother on the weekend, I would love to get out her big box of dominoes and spend an achingly long amount of time setting them up in rows that curved around furniture and lines which weaved through obstacles. When I reached the box’s end, the family would gather at the start of my creative endeavor dreamed up on the spot, and my grandmother would get the honor of tipping over the first domino. I wasn’t as overly ambitious as the YouTube and TikTok videos we watch now that involve thousands of multi-color tiles that fan out like magic with the flick of a finger. Still, it was captive-audience entertainment to keep my active imagination busy. I performed this ritual for years and constructed countless tapestries before knowing Dominoes was a coordinated game, not just pieces to line up and knock down.

In many ways, the set-up of the new Netflix heist comedy Lift is a lot like my Sunday afternoon sessions toppling dominoes. Look closely, and you can see how screenwriter Daniel Kunka arranged the mechanical plot details as tiles stacked neatly in sequence for director F. Gary Gray to execute in familiar patterns. Kicked off by star Kevin Hart, at first, you think the chain reaction has miscalculated its weightiness before it demonstrates a light touch that starts to pick up an impressive pace. While it has a few flourishes along the way, representing a spiraling cross weave of unexpected twists, it’s mostly a straight shot that rarely diverts from the security of its row on an unobstructed course toward completion.  And yet…it’s not bad, never boring at least.

With the help of his five-member crew, international art thief Cyrus Whitaker (Hart, The Upside) has just pulled off his latest caper right under the nose of Interpol Agent Abby Gladwell (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, A Wrinkle in Time). Stealing priceless works of art but ensuring that everyone (even the burgled) gets a profit cut, Cyrus is the best in the business. Though Gladwell gets close to putting the squeeze on Cyrus after a blunder on the part of his master-of-disguise Denton (Vincent D’Onofrio, Dumb Money), she’s ordered instead by her boss Huxley (Sam Worthington, Man on a Ledge) to offer Cyrus and his team a deal for an under the table job.

Unable to go through official government channels due to the sensitive nature of the work, Huxley needs the expertise only Cyrus’s team can offer to steal ten tons of gold being offered by financial terrorist Lars Jorgensen (played, naturally, by French actor Jean Reno, Waiting for Anya) to a shadow group capable of inflicting global terror. In exchange for their participation, their records will be expunged, and it’s too good for any career criminals to pass up. The catch? They’ll need to find a way to make off with the gold from a plane mid-flight.

While Lift is hardly in the same league as classic heist films like Oceans 11 or any of its sequels, it achieves a modest success based on the chemistry the cast finds with each other. The material may be raggedy and veers towards the ridiculous, but the camaraderie created keeps this one in the air. Leading by example is Hart in the most restrained performance I’ve ever seen him give. Gone is the manic comic that’s all kinetic energy, and in its place is an actor who provides the material with more weight than it likely deserves but elevates it all the same. I never completely bought the romantic connection formed with Mbatha-Raw (the characters had a brief fling when she was working undercover, unaware of his crimes) but did believe they’d pair off as kindred spirits for the cause.

Director Gray has handled these large ensemble efforts before (The Italian Job, The Fate of the Furious), so he knows how to juggle a sizable cast without losing players. Of the international crew Cyrus works with, only Úrsula Corberó as wheelwoman Camila and Billy Magnussen (Into the Woods) playing safecracker Magnus leave a lasting impression. Corberó gets extra credit for selling the bonkers finale aboard a high-tech plane that defies many laws (gravity, acting, special effects, logic) while Magnussen swipes several laughs from under Hart. Surprisingly, it’s D’Onofrio that seems far out of place here, and it feels like his role was trimmed – why else would a master of disguise never get a centerpiece moment to be, y’know, in disguise?

They describe some movies as throwaway entertainment; you can interpret that as a title you never have to consider. I’d put Lift in (my) newly minted ‘overhead compartment’ category, the type of harmlessly mindless movie you can stow away on a shelf for a weeknight when you want to turn the day off and know you haven’t wasted your free evening. Then, all you have to do is sit back and watch the dominoes fall smoothly into place.