The Hurricane Heist: Movie Review

Rock you like a hurricane

The Hurricane Heist is directed by Rob Cohen and stars Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Melissa Bolona, and Ralph Ineson. 

The Hurricane Heist....sure, why not? It may not be as ludicrous of a title as something like The Bye Bye Man, but just the title alone of this Rob Cohen-led disaster heist film should be enough of an indication that this is nothing more than a disposable, trigger-happy action film that cares not one bit for anything that doesn't directly involve guns or destructive hurricane sequences. You know what that means: laughable dialogue and one-dimensional characters, just to name a few of the most prominent issues. Even more sad: the film doesn't even try to go for an R-rating. Like, you know how much more you could do with your hurricane if you weren't restricted to the bloodless limitations of PG-13? On second thought, an R-rating wouldn't do much to save this film, because you can't title your movie The Hurricane Heist and expect someone to walk in and see the next Die Hard.  

Funny that I mention Die Hard, because the plot is dressed up as a two-person Die Hard imitator, with the hurricane only serving as a backdrop to drive the villains' scheme. Taking place in present day Alabama, The Hurricane Heist concerns the attempted robbery of $600 million from by a group of rogue Treasury agents, led by a man named Connor Perkins (Ralph Ineson). They attempt to crack the code of the vault containing the money, but find out that the code was changed by Treasury agent Casey Corbyn (Maggie Grace). As Conner and his men are infiltrating the cash facility containing the $600 million, Corbyn is out looking for handyman Breeze (Ryan Kwanten) to help fix the busted generator at the facility. When Corbyn and Breeze drive back to the facility, the rogue Treasury agents ambush them. Breeze is captured, but Corbyn is able to escape with the help of Breeze's brother, Will (Toby Kebbell), who works as a meteorologist and who just so happened to be visiting his brother while working nearby. Oh by the way, all of this is happening as a Category 5 hurricane begins to make its way through the area. 

The Hurricane Heist is a movie that I wish would just go all in on its absurdity and not take itself seriously the way it does. If Rob Cohen had done his best to make this movie as ridiculous as it can be, I might have been willing to view it as guilty pleasure fun. Sadly, there is none of that here. From top to bottom, The Hurricane Heist is a joyless storm of rubbish, offering about as much excitement as a goldfish playing dead in his fish bowl. 

High Points: 

​- Do I have to say something nice about this movie? Well, the absolute best thing that I can say about The Hurricane Heist is that Toby Kebbell and Maggie Grace are....alive. They put a little bit of life into their performances and show at least an ounce of care, providing the film with barely enough charm so as to not make everything you're watching on-screen completely unbearable. Maggie Grace is cheery enough, and something from Liam Neeson must have rubbed off on her while she was filming Taken, because she looks like she could sell herself well as a star in a better crafted action thriller. Toby Kebbell is good with everything required of him, though I'm hard-pressed to single out anything like his facial expressions or his line deliveries. He checks all the boxes for an actor's bare minimum in a movie, and that's good enough for me here. 

Low Points: 

​- The dialogue, the plot, the characters; they're all lumped together as one ghastly low point. The characters talk as if they have no clue how to communicate with each other, with my all time favorite being this: 

Casey: I'm out of bullets! 
Will: Well how'd that happen? 
Casey: I shot them all! 

Screenwriters Jeff Dixon and Scott Windhauser have no idea how to be funny versus how to be dramatic with their dialogue, as if certain lines were passed through a computer and Dixon and Windhauser just went with whatever results were spit out. The villains struggle to ascend beyond the realm of silly cartoon villains, as they constantly get outsmarted, with poor Connor Perkins trying and failing to come off as intimidating. There's also no clear motivation for the villains beyond using the hurricane as a get rich quick scheme, so good luck remembering these guys a week after you watch the film. The characters are as one-dimensional as all hell, and the actions suffers mightily for it. Why should we be that surprised though? Rob Cohen has never given a damn about these things in his action films. 


​The fact that I've said essentially nothing about the 'hurricane' aspects of this movie should alarm you; the hurricane is nothing but a gimmick for what is yet another soulless action thriller in Rob Cohen's directorial library. A movie that has the bravery to call itself The Hurricane Heist should at least strive to be as ridiculous as the title implies, but the sad truth is that The Hurricane Heist takes itself way too seriously,  a crime that heavily detracts from the film and causes it way more harm than good. Toby Kebbell and Maggie Grace do what they can to give the film a spark, but it's not enough when their performances are outweighed by awful dialogue, silly plotting, and lifeless characters. Everything you think will go wrong in The Hurricane Heist does go wrong, and then the movie piles on a few more surprising wrongs on top of those expected wrongs. It's a movie where "disaster action film" is too appropriate of a description, because the hurricane is not the only disaster going on here. 

Recommend? No 

Grade: D+