Lift - Review

Lift has all the makings of a fun action-comedy. A seasoned cast including Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Vincent D’Onofrio. Director F. Gary Gray, who proved his heist-movie chops with Set It Off and the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, and has a Fast and Furious movie under his belt, too. The premise – international art thief Cyrus Whitaker (Kevin Hart) and his crew of tech savvy criminals plot to steal $500 million in gold held aboard a passenger jet – is loaded with the potential for thrills and laughs. Unfortunately, none of the above saves Lift from mediocrity.

The problem is Lift doesn’t use any of the assets at its disposal in a way that benefits the film. Most of the cast, for instance, fails to establish any sense of character. They aren’t necessarily bad in their roles. They just don’t effectively portray fully realized people, and it’s hard to tell if the actors are hindered by lackluster material, or if they’re acting poorly.

This is especially true for Cyrus’ band of thieves. Even though their banter alludes to an interesting shared past, their individual identities are all dull caricatures of their job descriptions. The only notable thing about Yun Jee Kim’s Mi-Sun is that she’s a good hacker. Viveik Kalra’s Luc practically disappears when his services as an engineer are no longer needed. D’Onofrio, who’s normally brilliant, is criminally underused here as master of disguise Denton. Billy Magnussen’s wacky demeanor only goes so far in establishing the enthusiastic Magnus as anything but a safecracker. The same can be said of Lift’s villains: Jean Reno does what he can as the evil investment banker Lars, but given his limited screen time, his role amounts to an extended cameo.

Things improve whenever Mbatha-Raw is on screen. As Abby Gladwell, an Interpol agent and Cyrus’ potential love interest, her subtle display of emotions provides the occasional highlight. We know Abby’s apprehension about working with a band of thieves is diminishing because we can see it on Mbatha-Raw’s face. The opposite is true of Hart, who struggles with playing the supposedly charming Cyrus Whitaker. Aiming for “Old Hollywood debonair leading man,” he comes off instead as regressively stoic. Sometimes it works in his favor, like when Cyrus needs to be calm in the face of danger, but not so much in scenes that call for real feeling.

Lift is dragged down by a general half-heartedness. It goes beyond the actors and into the heists themselves: Fist fights on a plane and high-speed boat chases shouldn’t be this dull or by-the-numbers. Even the attempts at physical comedy fall flat. All of it feels odd given Gray’s résumé. Say what you will about the overall quality of The Italian Job or The Fate of the Furious, but you certainly wouldn’t call any of their action scenes boring.