Quick synopsis: A group of thieves plan to steal $500million a shit load of gold from a dickhead.

Palestine, Ukraine, economic turmoil, in these trying and confusing times it can be nice to have something to ground yourself, something that you can hold onto that you know is real. So thank Netflix for bringing us Lift and providing us with an undeniable truth; some films are utter shit.

F. Gary Gray has a weird history as a director. Sometimes he brings us Friday or Straight Outta Compton, and sometimes he brings us Men In Black: International. Lift belongs more in the second camp. It’s so by the numbers it’s basically a children’s colouring book. When you watch it unfold you’re not surprised or entertained by anything. There are moments where you can guess what’s going to happen, not just in terms of narrative, but also in terms of action scenes and dialogue. Everything has been done before, and done better.

Lift even copies the stupid things from action movies. They do that usual chase scene thing of using the “make go fast” lever/button when it’s dramatically convenient rather than when it would have been best to use it. It feels like the writer took a bunch of modern buzzwords like “NFT” and “hackers”, and then got AI to write the script. It has the “yes they’re thieves, but they’re the good guys” BS that’s prevalent in a lot of similar stories, but they’re not really good. Yeah, they’re stealing art from dickheads, but they’re doing it entirely for selfish reasons. Also, I’m calling BS on the “we’re the best thieves in the world” claim as the police know every single member of the crew. Not just names, but also their roles within the organisation, their addresses, and their contact details.

I’m also not entirely sure WHY it had to be this group of misfits who helped get the MacGuffin back. The movie states “We legally can’t get the gold because the transaction itself is legal”. But Interpol plans on taking the gold once it’s been retrieved. By doing that, they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it EXCEPT return the gold to the first person, who will then just make the deal again.

I don’t know enough about physics to call out the flight scenes as unrealistic, but even I know enough to doubt the scene where one of the planes flies upside down steadily for an extended period of time. I’m guessing there are more instances which will cause people’s heads to explode, but that was the most obvious. I do know enough to know that planes flying over the English Channel don’t tend to need to be wary of mountains. There’s not really an extended mountain range in Folkestone or Margate.

The worst thing for me about those errors is how unnecessary they are. Just don’t mention the mountains, say “high winds”. Make up a different reason for the crew being needed (maybe they used to work for the Big Bad so have inside information etc). Use a heist method which doesn’t involve flying a jet upside down. All of those are easy fixes for unnecessary problems. The fact that these problems are all over the film like Bill Cosby on an unconscious woman raises concerns. Concerns that the scriptwriter either didn’t realise they were problems, didn’t care, or was told to put these problems in by the studio. Neither of these scenarios is good. It just adds up to the feeling that nobody involved in this plane crash of a movie gave a shit about making it the best movie they could. Nobody went in with the intention of bringing 100%, they just did what they were paid to do, and then left. Nobody cared, and that’s evident throughout.

A plane heist is a unique idea, and one that could be interesting to watch unfold. As it is, it’s hard to recommend something as lazy as this. If nobody involved is going to care about a film, then why should the audience? Billy Magnussen is dope as fuck though.