Lift

If originality doesn't exist and there are no plans to look for inspiration to be unique, the smartest thing to do is to steal from the best. This is something that Kevin Hart, Netflix and director F. Gary Gray have proven in the production of the new action comedy Lift.

Here, the creator of films like Law Abiding Citizen and Straight Outta Compton has plucked and pinched from a whole host of recognisable heist classics. There's more than a fair amount of Ocean's Eleven here, a scoop of Sneakers (the Robert Redford film), a tablespoon of The Italian Job, and a pinch of The Thomas Crown Affair... This dish is then seasoned with Netflix's now patented lousy casting, terrible characters, horrible acting, ugly effects and dialogue that will have you burying your head in your hands on multiple occasions. Yes! Lift is another disappointing Netflix film.

Kevin Hart plays master thief Cyrus who, together with his motley and highly international, quota-based super team of nameless assistants, steals expensive things. Preferably art. The FBI is on their trail, however, and via a gorgeous investigator with zero intimidation factor, she threatens all these super thieves so much that they all agree to work together. Why? Because there's $200 million in gold on board a terrorist plane, and while in transit, up in the air, Cyrus and his super team must grab the gold bars and return to the ground alive. Tough situation. Impossible mission. The only people who can carry out the mission are a 6'2", 50-year-old comedian and his daft "inventor" Magnus (Billy Magnussen).

With films such as Red Notice, The Gray Man and Heart of Stone, Netflix has repeatedly tried to find its way through the jungle of agent/heist films. They obviously have some stubborn producer over there who wants nothing more than to get it right in this genre, to create their very own Mission: Impossible, and now that they've given Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Chris Evans, The Rock and Ryan Gosling hundreds of millions of dollars to try and find it, and they've all failed (fatally), and it's time to change course. Shut down. Do something else.

There is nothing in Lift that works. Hart has lowered his voice pitch two octaves, clearly cares much more about looking good and varying his 32 AP watches than actually trying to convey any kind of emotion. He is, for the most part, completely empty, and expressionlessly meaningless. However, in a couple of scenes he switches to his typical stand-up character and makes a couple of awkward grimaces in places where no other humour exists, which only makes this failure of a film even worse. Besides Hart, director F. Gary Gray has thrown in stars like Vincent D'Onofrio, Jean Reno and Sam Worthington but none of them have anything worthwhile to do here. The lines are laughable, the logic is appalling and any planned tension and humour falls flat.

It's rubbish. Hart has neither the presence of Tom Cruise, the charisma of Clooney, nor the charm of Robert Redford. He has, when he's not being funny, nothing. Absolutely nothing, and Lift is the worst big studio film of the year so far.