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How To Rob A Bank
R1 - America - Genius Products Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (4th September 2008). |
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The Film
 Nick Stahl has made some blips on my watchable actor radar, but hasn’t been able to provide the consistency needed to really earn a “Nick Stahl? Sure I’ll see it” reaction. His Yellow Bastard in “Sin City” (2005) was really well done, "Carnivàle" (2003-2005) was compelling and I’m even a fan of “Terminator 3” (2003). His latest appearance is in first-time writer/director Andrews Jenkins “How To Rob a Bank” (2007), which waivers between instruction video and exercise in audience attentiveness in an overly flashy, poorly put together, and just plain bad film. Stahl plays Jason ‘Jinx’ Taylor, a one-dimensional-philosophizer/every-person who goes in with a grievance to his bank after realizing how much money he’s losing in ATM transaction fees. Unfortunately he walks in on Simon (Gavin Rossdale) robbing his bank and escapes into the vault where he locks himself in and discovers Simon’s computer expert Jessica (Erika Christensen) in there with him. Jinx begins talks with the police, Simon and mysterious financier Nick (David Carradine) towards an agreement that can get him out of the vault and maybe with a little more money in his pocket or account along the way. Throughout the story Jinx supplies 10 hints on how to rob a bank which are all fairly direct, especially tip number 7 ‘Shit Happens.’ There’s not a lot for me to like in the film besides Stahl, but that isn’t for lack of trying. The writing between all the characters is too concerned with attempts at being insightful or cool, but for the most part entirely missing the point of what natural dialogue should sound like. Most of the philosophizing that goes on feels like a mix between a YouTube blog and a bad stand-up comedian, having Stahl become so deeply involved in a bank robbery just because of a 2 dollar ATM fee just isn’t compelling. Stahl does a good job of trying to make his character at least mildly watchable, borderline likeable until some new attempt at clever dialogue rolls along. Jessica, described on the DVD cover as a ‘sexy cyber-theif’ is a disinteresting and bland character, but then again so is Simon who just doesn’t give any sense of even a bungling thief. Christensen’s acting just isn’t there, there are shots where you can blatantly see her avoiding looking at the camera, but Rossdale is particularly bad. He spends most of the movie trying to act frustrated or anxious, but ends up sounding more constipated than anything. Too much of the film is played out over phone conversations with some bad directing and acting on both sides of the line. Though Stahl spends a good deal of the movie on the phone with Simon, Officer Degepse (Terry Crews) and Nick, Rossdale and Crews act more for a high school play audience with overly loud voices and large theatrical gestures even in their eye movements that would be funny if it didn’t make up the majority of the movie. Carradine’s performance is yet another example of his odd, apparently ‘for-the-money’ jobs that seem to keep popping up after the "Kill Bill" movies (2003-2004) . He’s on the phone the whole movie, but that’s probably how they recorded all his dialogue. Jenkins' directing is just about as bad as his writing. Far too many unnecessary 'spin-around-the-character' shots during dramatic moments or sped up/slowed down montages for more effect. On top of these there’s the 'going-through-the-bank-vault-door' shots that are used over and over again. To me these things are just signals to tune out of the movie. Jenkins tries to make an independent flashy heist movie, without the starpower, charm or skill necessary to pull off that type of film. Overall, “How To Rob a Bank” is a cornball independent heist movie that just doesn’t deliver on any account. Stahl tries his best to keep the movie afloat, but when there are 5 minute sequences that are entirely “Can You Hear Me Now?” phone reception jokes, there’s not much there to save (or at least not much worth saving). There’s no heist like drama present to really get the audience involved, either through the characters or even the hope of seeing some robber trickery as most of the movie is told in long shots of phone conversations that take place on 3 fairly bland sets.
Video
Presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, “How To Rob a Bank” doesn’t have much to entertain visually but the transfer quality is good. The grain isn’t bad and looks very clean. It’s hard to say much about the colors as most of the film either takes inside of a vault coverd with silver safety deposit boxes or in a beige bank interior. I don’t think anyone wears a brighter color than light blue in the entire film; boring, but clear.
Audio
The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track doesn’t do much for me either, not only is the writing uninspired and the music cornball, but the film uses sound effects to enhance the speedup slowdown scenes that just get annoying after a few uses. Quality wise the audio is good, the balance and levels of the audio sound right and come out clear. The sound mixing is fine with all of the cell phone audio, adding a small amount of distortion to make it sound like it should, but there’s nothing special here. Optional subtitles are included in both English and Spanish.
Extras
The disc is fairly barren of extras except for two incredibly short featurettes and some bonus trailers, discussed below. First is “Making of ‘How to Rob a Bank’: The Story” featurette runs for 4 minutes and 9 seconds. There’s a bunch of behind the scenes shots along with some footage from the film, the actual featurette was apparently made as a between-films segment for IFC. Jenkins manages to come across as self involved and pretentious in the short featurette, which isn’t too interesting and doesn’t have enough time to really discuss anything in its incredibly tiny run time. “Making of ‘How to Rob a Bank’: The Characters” runs for 5 minutes and 59 seconds, another short featurette made for IFC. Stahl and the other actors discuss their characters, Jenkins makes an appearance to talk about what drew him to these actors. Again incredibly short and doesn’t add anything to the film in terms of making the characters more interesting, Stahl even has trouble talking about what makes his character worth watching. There are also some startup bonus trailers for: - “Paranoid Park” runs for 2 minutes and 13 seconds. - “Anamorph” runs for 1 minute 15 seconds. - “The Killing of John Lennon” runs for 1 minute 12 seconds. - “Last Winter” runs for 1 minute 49 seconds. - “Flakes” runs for 1 minute 9 seconds.
Overall
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