This movie clearly wanted to be a HBO mini-series. It's still a good watch, just the pacing is a bit weird.

Slow and boring as hell! I don't know why this is a 7. Do yourselves a favor and skip this one. Thank me later.

Viola did an absolutely terrific job, as well as Daniel Kaluuya and Cynthia as well, for the short time she was present. Aside from that, all performances were forgettable. The first half of the film was mostly well done - the setting up of desperation, the building of characters, etc. From the actual 'heist' and on, I lost complete interest, as if this was a film I'd seen a thousand times. The characters lost their fire, intensity and drive to do the job. I feel if the beginning of the film was lengthened, some trimming near the actual heist, and cut out the entire end, this would have been a better film. Come to think of it, the entire reveal of [spoiler] Liam Neeson's character should be removed. He added absolutely nothing to any part of the story.[/spoiler] The only part where I was full, unbreakably engaged in the scene, was when [spoiler] Jatemme was at the bar, speaking with Welsh, and then stabbing the shit out of him[/spoiler], that is the kind of fucking intensity this film should have used, not conversations with pointless, 1-scene characters (such as the reverend, and maybe Mulligan's father). It's rather sad that any time I heard a Chicago accent, all I could think about was the movie _The Town_, which is one of the gold standards of the heist genre. I enjoyed remembering that movie more, than watching this one. Now a heist movie with Neeson AND Bernthal? _That's_ something I want to see.

1 / 2 directing & technical aspect 0 / 1 story .5 / 1 act I .5 / 1 act II .5 / 1 act III 1 / 1 acting 0 / 1 writing 0 / 1 originality 0 / 1 stays with you 0 / 1 misc 3.5 out of 10

It felt like this was almost something more than its premise, but never quite achieved that goal. I think the writing was the weakest link here.