Livestonth
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
Lollivan
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Bessie Smyth
Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Mo (Mublumm@aol.com)
Great action, cute dose of comedy, great storytelling, everybody played their roles really well and it was an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes. I bought the DVD to see Luke Perry, I was pleasantly surprised to see David Faustino, another fave, and I enjoyed each character. The writer, director, and producer should be proud of what they put together, especially with the obviously limited budget. I don't recall ever watching a made-for-DVD B-movie before, but this one was well worth it. Lots of fun. I figured this movie would be junk, but each character managed to portray their own stories and characters really well. They made you care about them and made you want to see them and how they respond to situations. It's funny, because they managed to do that more than many Hollywood Blockbusters can sometimes. And I really want to think that I am unbiasedly reviewing this, but I guess I can relate to four of the characters. I relate to Mo, as my name is Mo, I like music,and although I am capable of making good money, I can't work at a job I don't like, even if it means living in a gutter! Same situation! I feel like Perry's character as I feel I deserve some good after all the stuff I've been through. I can relate to the bald guy as I am religious and do things against my better conscious judgement all the time. And I am like David Faustino's character because I'm short, I try to fit in by being cool but wouldn't harm a fly unless I'm pushed into a situation where I have to, then it begins to become natural, as it did him. I feel these are general ways anyone can relate to any of these characters and that's why I think the movie is so good, it has so much of us in these ridiculous characters. Well done.
Comeuppance Reviews
Not to be confused with The Heist (1997), nor should it be confused with Armored (2009), of which this is a precursor by ten years, THIS "The Heist" is a decent urban shoot-em-up starring an over-the-top Ice-T as "C-Note".C-Note, Slim (Wisdom) and Trent hijack an armored car and murder the guards. They hide out in an abandoned warehouse but then Jack (Perry) and his brother Moe (Richmond Arquette) stumble upon them and try to take the money while trying not to get killed by C-Note. There are plenty of double and triple crosses, some of which involve white boyz trying to be more "street", one of which is played by David Faustino. During the final, prerequisite gun battle, C-Note shouts "Die, white boy, die!" Thanks to Ice-T's inimitable delivery, that is laugh-out-loud funny.Luke Perry has a beard and attempts to act "tough", with middling results. Before holding up the armored car, C-Note once again gets a great line when he utters "This is our personal ATM. Let's make a withdrawal". Clearly C-Note missed his calling as a banker/financial guru.All in all, "The Heist" (1999) is an adequate, workmanlike action flick with no surprises.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
Craig
This movie is the perfect example where a decent plotline featuring good actors can be totally butchered by terrible scripting and bad dialogue. While the premise of a straight forward armoured car robbery and the subsequent battle for the spoils is (in my humble opinion) a solid storyline, the execution of the storyline in this movie is so bad as to be almost unwatchable. This is obviously a made-for-TV movie (the DVD features 4x3 format and stereo sound only, no widescreen or 5.1), but manages to fall short of even that benchmark. The characters are (for the most part) ridiculous, the dialog extremely corny, and the details of the storyline so bad they would appear to have been written by a ten year old. The thing that lured me to hire this piece of rubbish was the R rating - I was expecting some violent and graphic acts of carnage. But even the action sequences in this movie are poor - one notably featuring a bizarre looping of footage after someone is shot. Whether this was an editing glitch or a failed attempt to heighten the dramatic impact of the sequence is open for debate. In short, avoid this film like the proverbial plague. Do yourself a favour, and hire The Salton Sea instead.
Jim Hemphill
This is yet another sharp, stylish genre piece from the talented and always underappreciated Kurt Voss, a skilled director as at home in the world of low-budget exploitation as in that of character-driven art house work. Here Voss uses the limitations of the low-budget genre world as assets, creating a work of energy and distinction marked by the same kind of witty dialogue as his collaborations with Allison Anders or his underrated HORSEPLAYER. Whereas most of the straight-to-video and cable world is a vast wasteland of clunky, empty-headed junk, Voss is continuing in the tradition of people like Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, and Joe Dante, who in the seventies used exploitation films as vehicles for intelligent, personal entertainments. Like all of Kurt Voss's work from BORDER RADIO to SUGAR TOWN, THE HEIST is a great deal of fun and highly recommended.