American Heist (2014) Movie Review

Added: 2026-05-17

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[00:00:36]And this is for American Heist, a 2014 film that, to be honest, I had never heard of before. Apparently, this one this went into theaters, but it didn't make any money whatsoever.

[00:00:53]I don't know if it's true. I read somewhere they only made like 250 bucks in the US and then I heard that it was like okay well actually probably a couple you thousand and then you know it did a little bit of money on home video but I it did not nearly made back its supposed $10 million budget but I mean I could see why it flocked because it did I had never even heard of this film. I'm more than educated guess that you've never heard of this film.

[00:01:27]And then when you watch it, it's just a very generic by the numbers movie. I mean, you've seen this type of I know it's stupid to say you've seen this type of film because you could point to any film today and go, I've seen that film before and X Y and Z movies in the 80s or 90s. But this one, it really did not bring anything new to the table.

[00:01:51]If you seen crime thrillers like The Town, that's what it remind me of. But The Town was much much better with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Rener.

[00:02:01]The Town was much more better directed, more fascinating story, better pacing.

[00:02:12]When the action gets in, it was handled better in terms of choreography.

[00:02:18]This Hayden Christensen stars in it.

[00:02:24]I will say I do think it's one of his better performances. I'm still not a fan of the actor. I still don't think he's up there.

[00:02:32]He's more of the lower tier actors. I people may get mad at that. That's how I honestly believe.

[00:02:40]I'm not a Hayden Christensen fan.

[00:02:45]I mean, there's other actors, whether it be Aaron Eckhart or Thomas Jane or Jeremy Rener, like I mentioned, that I put way above him.

[00:02:54]But if I'm being fair, considering some of the other films I've seen him in, the one where he's a patient and he's like hearing everybody in the hospital and he finds out there's going to be an attempt on his life, but he can't do anything. I think it's called Awake. Could be wrong on that. There's that one. There was you know, the Star Wars prequels, Jumper.

[00:03:18]I don't think he was great in those.

[00:03:20]This one, he's a bit better. I I'll give credit where credit's due.

[00:03:27]I don't think he's the leading man material, though. But I think he gave an awful performance. No. Adrien Brody, I thought he did a good job. Some people may say he's hamming it up or he's going too much in that I I don't know if I want to say jersey that that kind of accent tone, but I I thought Adrien Brody, as I stopped stuttering, he was the best part of the film. I thought he gave a very emotional performance. He was very exuberant in his range of emotions. you know, times where he's breaking down and I bought it.

[00:04:09]If this film had a better writer, it was just on Adrien Brody's character and maybe it was a redemption tale or maybe it was this journey where he's like one type of character and he went through this terrible stuff in prison and there's this journey where he kind of takes control of his life and regains his manhood. Like I mean that to me would have been a more intriguing direction than what we have here.

[00:04:36]And hell, I know you've seen that before too, but that would have been just more interesting for me personally than what we have here.

[00:04:46]Cuz what we got is Hayden Christensen and Adrien Brody play brothers.

[00:04:53]Adrien Brody went to prison. It was a job him and Hayden had done together, but Adrien took more of the blame. An individual was killed, so he served a longer jail sentence still in jail while Hayden is trying to his life get his life figured out. He's being a mechanic and Hayden meets this girl played by Jordana Brewster who's been in the Fast and the Furious among other movies. She's a police dispatcher.

[00:05:28]There's not a whole lot of done a lot of stuff done with the fact she's a police dispatcher other than she's a I mean she watches the news when the heist happens, but that could be any profession.

[00:05:43]I just thought her being a police dispatcher will actually be fitted more into the plot, the story.

[00:05:50]It really isn't.

[00:05:52]I mean, it was pretty pointless, honestly, that that was her job because it just seemed like a very specific job other than other guys think she's a cop and he's like, "No, she's not a cop, but nothing really comes of that little altercation other than this kind of 30 second scene where she's a cop. She's not a cop." And then there you go.

[00:06:20]I mean, she could have been a [ __ ] waitress where her brother or her dad or whatever was a cop. It would not have made much difference.

[00:06:31]So, some loveydovey stuff between Hayden and Jordana. Adrien Brody gets out of jail. He talks with Hayden. It pretty much forces him, begs him, pleads with him to help him out because when Adrien Brody was in prison, he had been.

[00:06:52]And it's a very heartbreaking scene when he breaks down and he's like, "You don't know [ __ ] They broke me, bro. You don't know [ __ ] about what happened." He's like breaking down and crying and doesn't want to admit it, but he does admit it. and like he's trying to go for an Oscar.

[00:07:10]And if Trey would try to do this, not the easiest thing to pull off and Adrien Brody I I give I thought that was the scene that stuck out the most in terms of acting and he needs Hayden to work with him. Hayden is going to be the wheelman for these two guys that helped him in prison. So more of that didn't happen.

[00:07:35]These two guys, Sugar and Ray and Hayden does. Oh yeah, Sugar Ray. You know the the joke, but Sugar and Ray, they do one bit of crime. Hayden is the wheelman gets away. It's not a lawn scene of the getaway. It's not like this big action setpiece. It's just have a couple turns here and there, couple shots of under the steering wheel where Hayden's turning and stuff. I mean, it's nothing that you really don't remember the next day after you watch it.

[00:08:12]And he wants to leave. He wants to pack up and head out, but he can't. He's kind of stuck there because he knows Sugar and Ray not only will go after him, but we'll go after Jordana Brewster. And Hayden's asking Adrian Brody, how does how do they even know about her? And he's like, "Well, I I talked. What? I was happy for you, and there's not much love in in prison." And so Adrien Broy's character is quite a bit of a [ __ ] He is jumpy. He is cries a bit throughout the film. And you tell he has some weak faculties while the younger brother Hayden seems to be the more stronger willed person.

[00:09:01]Now, that's pretty much the first hour or such of the film.

[00:09:06]There's really not a whole lot to it. At one point, Hayden kind of breaks it off with Jordana to protect her.

[00:09:15]quite a few scenes of he and Adrien Broy kind of talking and him still kind not constantly but pleading and then planning this big bank robbery.

[00:09:31]For some reason, the rider decided, I guess because they wanted these two to have a little bit of a different ideology, but sugar especially after you have sugar or Ray, well, they both they really hate banks and they go, "My favorite president was Thomas Jefferson because he fought the banks."

[00:09:54]I'm like, "Yeah, you know what? He might have, but I don't think he wanted to do the kill police officers and bring down choppers and [ __ ] too. So, I'm sure Thomas Jefferson is watching going, "What the [ __ ] What is this [ __ ] Don't [ __ ] put my name in your mouth or pull Will Smith and slap the taste out of it."

[00:10:20]So yeah, they have this ideology about hating banks and the institution, but they kind of bring it up, but they don't go much further in detail the background of these characters or character development or anything of that nature.

[00:10:42]And it's all this buildup.

[00:10:44]And unless you're a diehard Hayden Christensen, Adrien Brody fan, this is all going to seem just very very by the numbers. This does seem like more of a direct to streaming movie, not a film that would have been in theaters.

[00:11:02]And it it just doesn't bring enough due to the table to really catch your interest or catch your intrigue cuz then when they get to the robbery, Haven's the wheel man, the others are inside the bank. things seem to be going well, but then Sugar or Ray one of they they killed the bank manager even though he opened the vault.

[00:11:29]So I'm like, well, what's the deal with that?

[00:11:33]That's the thing. You want to have this ideology that's the banks, the banks, the banks. We hate banks, but you're willing to murder this guy who like what did he do to deserve that?

[00:11:49]That's the thing. Like if it's really about being angry at the banks, this guy had nothing to do with it. He's just a worker there kind of boots the boots the point they were trying to make in the first place. So I'm like, were they just full of [ __ ] on that?

[00:12:09]But they don't make it seem like that's the case either.

[00:12:13]I just to show that these are really really bad people.

[00:12:19]So that's happening.

[00:12:23]One of the guys in the bank, one of the robbers, they he looks out the window and a woman, she's going to go in. She sees that. She runs off.

[00:12:36]Then a cop goes by is going to shoot someone. Andrew Brody freaks out, saves the person, and but shoots the the cop.

[00:12:46]You tell he's freaked out because he figures I'm done. This happened once long, long long ago. Now it's happened again.

[00:12:54]The cops get there, they start shooting, and then all hell breaks loose. When I say all hell breaks loose, I'm not expecting it to be like Heat, Michael Man's heat, but it just it's just very kind of generic. Shoot at them, shoot at them. There's nothing that you need being done.

[00:13:18]It's funny. I kept thinking I just go and play Grand Theft Auto 5 because I've been playing that for the first time recently.

[00:13:26]I'm like, can I just go back and play Grand Theft Auto 5 instead of this [ __ ] Just pretty much some of the people get killed. Sugar and Ray, they get out.

[00:13:39]They get in the car. Hayden's trying to drive. They drive into a police car.

[00:13:45]Which I'm like, did Hayden Richardson hit that cop with a car? Did you see it hit and bounce? Is the guy dead? If that's the case, is Hayden just as guilty as the others? Does he hit this car? It literally hit the cop as well.

[00:13:59]You saw like bounce off and stuff like on the side view or something.

[00:14:06]They pretty much Hayden runs back to the bank. Adrien Brody's been wounded on the side and it's kind of them kind of hanging out and trying to figure out what to do and Hayden trying to take care of Adrien Brody's wounds and they'll cut to Sugar and Ray who are barely characters. I mean, you see, you saw them sporadically through the film, just don't leave, do the PL, but there's nothing about them that really strike me as memorable.

[00:14:37]No bits like dialogue, die tribe of their character work, just nothing. So, I don't give a [ __ ] about following these guys and they split up.

[00:14:48]One of them takes out a helicopter like this [ __ ] GTA or like just me when I was playing Grand Theft Auto 5 trying to take out a helicopter.

[00:15:01]So he takes the helicopter down, but it's very CGI heavy where it goes and it slams to a building and the tail kind of hangs for a bit and then falls.

[00:15:12]But they did very CGI and you tell the budget is lower on this end because it's not like garbage bottom the barrel CG but CG that you tell is CG just doesn't quite it's off it's below average CGI not the worst CGI but below average CGI compared to the well I would say at the time the blockbuster movies of that era or they're shooting cop cars.

[00:15:48]They split up. One gets to like this wedding and he has a hostage and the cops shoot him in the head and the blood splatters on the bride.

[00:16:00]The other is Ally. He just shot up. He falls their garbage. Tries to get up again. They shoot the [ __ ] out of him.

[00:16:08]He's dead.

[00:16:11]Then you cut to Adrien Brody and Hayden Christensen and they don't know what to do. So Adrien Brody gets the idea to beat the shab's brother, knock him out, takes a host hostage's clothes, puts it on him, which even I'll get to that. He goes out has the the gun on him to make the cops believe the guy's a hostage.

[00:16:48]Agent Brody takes a gun off. He knows he's going to die. He gets shot in the head.

[00:16:53]Hayden gets put into the ambulance.

[00:16:58]But I guess during the whole changing the clothes, they did not take off the [ __ ] that would tell them he was one of the criminals because they're open it up and they see I think it's like a bulletproof vest or something and they see that and they go, "What the hell?" So then Hayden beats the [ __ ] out of the paramedics, makes a run for it.

[00:17:20]Geanna Brewster saw this on TV. She just gets up from a workstation and leaves.

[00:17:26]And then hey, Richardson's like on a trolley kind of sitting there and then the movie ends. So you're sitting there going, okay, Joanna Brewster, you don't know what happens to her. You don't know if she just left for home. Is she going to try to find hating dish? Is something else going to happen? Don't know.

[00:17:44]She might have said, "Fuck this. I'm going home and taking a bath. I don't need a shower and diddle myself." Don't [ __ ] know.

[00:17:53]Hey, Trisha saying he's screwed because it's on TV.

[00:17:59]The paramedics is going to say this guy is one of the robbers. They're going to have his face. When Adrian Broy beat the [ __ ] out of him, the blood splattered on the window. So, there's DNA and blood splatter that half an episode of CSI will [ __ ] be able to determine who he is.

[00:18:18]Plus, you don't see, okay, this guy died. Who's his family? Oh, he has a brother. Oh, wait. That brother, there's his picture. There's the same brother.

[00:18:27]So, now he's going to be on the run.

[00:18:30]It doesn't show. Is he going to go to Mexico? Is he going to go to Canada? Is he going to be the fugitive?

[00:18:36]Is it going to be Bruce Banner?

[00:18:40]So, even the ending, it's just it was really all for nothing.

[00:18:45]He's down the [ __ ] So even if you did like the characters is a pretty bummer ending hated and screwed but the movie made it seem maybe I'm wrong.

[00:19:00]It felt as if the movie was so [ __ ] stupid. It thought hey is you know got away and I don't know the number of things that I just said he's he's screwed.

[00:19:16]I don't know. It's one of those things that you looked at the ending, you go, he might as well have just been [ __ ] arrested then.

[00:19:28]I just the idea is that I I don't where the [ __ ] he's going to go into hiding somewhere some way, which I mean, he has no money. He didn't even get any money. I don't think he got any money from the heist anyway. So, it's not like he got a bag of cash and he's going to leave and go somewhere. At least I didn't see he had any.

[00:19:53]So there you go. It's a by the numbers film.

[00:19:57]The third act is where the action happens and you get some firepower. You get some, you know, cop cars getting shot up. You get the helicopter bit with the below average CG at points.

[00:20:14]Agent Broaddy does what he can with the role. Hayden Christensen better than usual, but at the same time, I would not say he was great because I to beat a dead horse. I'm not big on the guy as an actor.

[00:20:32]I There's plenty of other better actors in the sea. any when you watch this you go why don't you just watch the town with Ben Affleck or the number of other crime thriller films out there where it's two brothers I mean two brothers and they don't crime one's not really four and one is thrust this situation I don't like the film but even Gone in 60 seconds I'd rather rewatch with Nicholas Cage age cuz I was naked and his brothers were in trouble when he had to do this stuff here.

[00:21:11]That's a film I think could have been a lot better. I mean, but hell, I rewatched that over this. I'm sure you can name a bunch of crime throws that this reminds you of and probably, you know, be better than this.

[00:21:26]So, yeah, that's my thoughts.

[00:21:31]Honestly, you watch the trailer, you got the gist of the movie.

[00:21:37]So, there you go.

[00:21:40]Thanks for watching. Take care and we will see you in the next video. Bye-bye for now.