Lift

A professional thief hired by Interpol to take $500 million in gold from a terrorist financier's plane in midair is the subject of Lift, a Netflix heist thriller starring Kevin Hart and director F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job). Hart portrays Cyrus, the head of a team of experts that includes a pilot (Úrsula Corberó), hacker (Yun Jee Kim), safecracker (Billy Magnussen), and master of disguise (Vincent D'Onofrio). He is required to collaborate with his former girlfriend Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an Interpol agent who is providing them with immunity in return for their services. Before settling into its primary airborne mission, which features glossy European settings and some genuinely clever moments—like the team's mid-flight extraction plan and a disguised vape gun—that evoke the playful inventiveness of better heist films, the movie begins with an intricate Venice art heist involving NFTs.

At best, the film's critical reaction has been mediocre, with several people describing it as "as generic and forgettable as its title." The chemistry between Hart and Mbatha-Raw is implausible, and the supporting characters are weakly written caricatures characterized only by their story duties, even as Hart switches from his typical frenetic comedy demeanor to a more controlled, romantic-lead portrayal that some found refreshing. The villain (Jean Reno) is so undeveloped that some have said he could have been replaced with a scarecrow, and Daniel Kunka's screenplay is reliant on "ridiculous technobabble" and "ridiculous turns" that stretch credulity even by heist movie standards. Despite Gray's skillful staging, the action scenes are marred by "blandly zippy editing tricks" and computer-generated imagery that frequently appears unrealistic. Lift ultimately works best as "a light forgettable escapist time"—a decent diversion for audiences prepared to suspend disbelief and ignore its formulaic plotting, but it also serves as an example of Netflix's propensity to create glitzy, celebrity-studded action movies that put algorithm-friendly ideas ahead of true originality or emotional resonance.

Staff:

Directed by: F. Gary Gray

Written by: Daniel Kunka

Produced by: Simon Kinberg, Audrey Chon, Matt Reeves, Adam Kassan, Kevin Hart, and Brian Smiley

Starring: Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D'Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó, Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, Jean Reno, and Sam Worthington

Cinematography: Bernhard Jasper

Edited by: William Yeh

Music by: Dominic Lewis and Guillaume Roussel

Production companies: Hartbeat, Kinberg Genre Films, 6th & Idaho Motion Picture Company

Distributed by: Netflix

Release date: January 12, 2024

Running time: 107 minutes