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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Wendy Ide

Lift review – airborne bullion heist no better than a counterfeit Oceans

Kevin Hart, Yun Jee Kim, Jacob Battalion and Úrsula Corberó in Lift.
Kevin Hart, Yun Jee Kim, Jacob Battalion and Úrsula Corberó in the ‘brash’ Lift. Netflix Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix

After the partial failure of a plan to simultaneously steal an NFT and a Van Gogh painting, a team of art thieves led by mastermind Cyrus (Kevin Hart) must work with Interpol to lift $500m worth of gold bullion from a passenger plane at 40,000ft in this brash, hollow heist movie. It’s a picture that desperately wants to emulate the easy, freewheeling charm of the Oceans series but lacks the wit, charisma and pleasing ingenuity to do so. Perhaps aware of the limitations of the screenplay, director F Gary Gray deploys an irritating arsenal of flashy camera moves and sleight-of-hand edits, but these only serve to emphasise the emptiness of the spectacle.

Watch a trailer for Lift.
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