Tag Archives: Lydia Hull

Insomnia File #67: Heist (dir by Scott Mann)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you find yourself awake later tonight, you can always go over to Tubi and watch the 2015 direct-to-video action thriller, Heist.

Heist takes place in Louisiana.  Francis “The Pope” Silva (Robert De Niro) is a mobster and businessman who owns a riverboat casino.  The Pope lives his life according to a set of simple but very specific rules.  He doesn’t lend money.  He doesn’t forgive people who betray him.  If you steal from him, he will track you down and he will get his money back and he will make you regret your decision.  Working as his main henchman is the sadistic Dog (Morris Chestnut).  The Pope’s former main henchman was a man named Luke Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) but Luke grew tired of the violence and walked away from it all.  Now, Luke works as a dealer in The Pope’s casino.  His daughter is sick and Luke desperately needs $300,000 to pay her medial bills.  When The Pope refuses to give him the money, Luke teams up with security guard Jason Cox (Dave Bautista) and sets out to rob the place.

The robbery is carefully planned by Luke but, inevitably, things go wrong.  A security guard shows up earlier than he was supposed to.  A shootout leads to Jason’s best friend, Dante (Stephen Cyrus Sepher), getting shot.  The getaway driver panics and drives off, leading to Luke, Cox, and Dante hijacking a bus.  Cox orders the bus driver (D.B. Sweeney) to take them to Galveston but Luke is more concerned with getting the money to his daughter.  Meanwhile, two police officers — Kris Bajos (Gina Carano) and Detective Marconi (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) — follow the bus, each pursuing their own agenda.

Considering that this film is basically a low budget rip-off of Speed (albeit without a bomb threatening to take out the cast), Heist has an impressive cast and they all do a good job of elevating the film above its B-movie origins.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are hundreds of plot holes to be found in Heist.  The film’s big twist really doesn’t make much sense when you think about it.  But, in the end, Heist is an entertaining thrill ride that moves quickly enough that most viewers really won’t have time to obsess on all the lapses of logic.  Morgan plays his role with just enough heart that you want his criminal to succeed.  De Niro brings some extra layers to a role that could have been a caricature.  There’s a brief scene in which he meets his estranged daughter (Kate Bosworth) and, as a result, you suddenly see his character in an entirely new light.  As a character who seems like a much more sinister version of Zach Morris, Mark-Paul Gosselaar keeps you guessing.  And finally, Gina Carano — years before her cancellation — gives an earnest performance that works despite her character being rather inconsistently written.

Heist is an entertaining and fast-paced action film with a good cast and an interesting story.  If you can’t sleep, you might as well be entertained.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It

Film Review: Precious Cargo (dir by Max Adams)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2016’s Precious Cargo tells the story of Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his ex-wife Karen (Claire Forlani).

Karen is a professional thief who has botched a robbery for her former lover, crime boss Eddie Filosa (Bruce Willis).  Eddie wants Karen dead so, of course, Karen flees down to the Florida everglades, where she finds Jack living in a swamp shack and making love to his latest girlfriend, Jenna (Lydia Hull).  Karen tells them to go ahead and finish up and she’ll just wait out in the kitchen.  Jack in not particularly happy to see Karen again but then he notices that she has a baby bump.  “Always use a condom,” Karen tells Jenna.  Eddie’s men, led by Simon (Daniel Berhardt), attack and it all leads to a boat chase that is surprisingly exciting when you consider that Precious Cargo is a low-budget, direct-to-video offering.

It turns out that Jack can save Karen from Eddie’s wrath by planning and executing a heist for the crime boss.  Jack assembles his crew, Jack gets ready for the heist …. uh-oh, it’s time for a double cross!  The plot is nothing special.  It’s identical to a hundred other low-budget crime films that you’ve seen recently.  It’s the type of thing that Michael Mann could have turned into a metaphor for American ennui but, in this film, it’s just a typical heist.  The viewer enjoys it while it’s happening and then forgets about it two minutes afterwards.

That said, Precious Cargo is not quite as bad as the typical direct-to-video film.  Mark-Paul Gosselaar — yes, Zack Morris himself — gives a reasonably compelling performance as Jack.  To a certain group of people, he’s always be Zack and I imagine he’s sick of people asking him about whether or not he still has his giant phone but, as he’s gone from teen idol to adult actor, Gosselaar has shown himself to be a talented actor.  (For the record, Zack lost his phone in the drunk driving episode.  I know some people say that episode doesn’t count because it was a Tori episode but I say that it does.  So there.)  Claire Forlani is actually more compelling in these direct-to-video films than she ever was in any of the big budget studio films that she used to appear in.

Of course, I imagine that the main selling point for this film was meant to be Bruce Willis.  This is one of the direct-to-video films that dominated the last fourth of Willis’s career.  When Willis retired due to aphasia, there was a general assumption that all of Willis’s direct-to-video films were made as a result of his condition.  I don’t know if that’s quite true.  (It’s entirely possible that he just wanted a quick payday.)  But it is true that Willis only has a few minutes of screentime in Precious Cargo and that several shots involving Eddie were accomplished with a stand-in.  That said, in this film, Willis still brings some energy to the part.  He’s an effective villain, even if I think everyone prefers to see Willis saving the day.  Even in the direct-to-video era, Bruce Willis still had a definite presence.

Precious Cargo is predictable and ultimately forgettable but it’s still entertaining enough for 90 minutes.