I picked up this movie purely based on the high ratings it has gathered in other review sites, and to tell the truth, I almost wanted to switch to another a few times in the first 30 minutes or so. The story built up quite slowly initially, and the actors seemed boring and lack of emotion. There was a worker who got fired, and a former veteran turned bartender, and a woman and a kid. The kid did not look quite dazzling (think High School Musical standard), and the woman, played by Katie Holmes, looked old and tired and totally unenjoyable. Quite a perfect case for the build up of a boring movie, until when something suddenly happened.
The main man, in revenge to the company who fired him for no reason, and to the society that has been mistreating him and his family as a whole, decided to steal their money. And from then on things started to get exciting. There is no shortage of past movies on the same topic, but this one is different, because the team that carried out the deed was so hopeless that it would be unimaginable for them to pull it off without getting arrested and thrown into jail. But they did, and they got away with it, with a major, huge, smart twist in the end.
It turned out, the guy was smarter than I thought, and the last 30 minutes of the movie more than redeemed for the initial boring part. I was silently hoping that they would be able to get through. Of course, stealing is bad, and I am not in any way supporting that. But it would be very sad to see them thrown into jail, especially after all the injustice and ridicule they have been suffering from the society. And after all, the company that they were stealing from did not really suffer much, and even wanted to bury the incident and move on, so who’s the wiser.
Channing Tatum was a cool guy, and he showed his coolness in full force in this movie. He was the mastermind of the whole heist, and devised a careful, almost perfect plan to cover their tracks and got out safely, and even thought of a safe way to know when to dig out the money. And he looked very much a doting father in this movie, and built great chemistry with his little daughter, who melt hearts with her rendition of the all time favourite country song “Take Me Home, Country Road”. (The last time this song was sung was also in another nice movie that Channing took part, “Kingsman Golden Circle”, in another touching moment).
A really lovely cowboy movie indeed. And they really lived freely, recklessly but also fully. Job well done.
Rating: 4 yummy popcorns. I am satisfied. 🙂
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