You know those big, glossy Netflix original movies with the flashy casts and exotic locales? The ones that seem to check all the boxes - adventure, action, maybe some sparks flying between the leads - but still, leave you feeling kind of empty afterwards? Well, Lift is one of those.
Directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, Fate of the Furious), Lift brings together Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D'Onofrio, and more for a heist involving stealing half a billion dollars in gold bars off a commercial airliner mid-flight between London and Zurich. And I'll be honest: that premise had me intrigued. I mean, who doesn't love a good heist story, especially one set in the confined quarters of an airplane pulling off death-defying aerial stunts?
But here's the thing: while Lift delivers the requisite action set pieces, at no point did I ever truly feel invested in what was happening on screen. The stakes felt low, the characters thinly drawn, and perhaps most disappointing, very little creativity or cleverness seems to have gone into the heist itself.
Flimsy Plot and Forgettable Characters
The movie opens with Hart's character, Cyrus Whitaker, pulling off an art heist to steal a highly-coveted NFT. This ends up scoring his crew mega bucks when the NFT later skyrockets in value. So far, so good - we're introduced to Cyrus' talents and team, seeding them as skilled operators.
But then the plot takes a random turn when Interpol agent Abby Gladwell (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) recruits Cyrus and crew into helping steal the gold ransom that's being held on the London-Zurich flight by villainous businessman Jean Reno. Abby and Cyrus apparently have some romantic history from when they were undercover together, because we needed a paint-by-numbers backstory to justify the tired "bickering couple with unresolved sexual tension" dynamic.
Why is the gold there? Why do they need to steal it? Doesn't really matter, I guess. The details are fuzzy, mostly functioning as setup for the team coming together to execute the heist. And on that team, we've got:
Cyrus: the leader
Abby: the love interest
Camila: the pilot
Denton: the disguise expert
Mi-Sun: the hacker
Magnus: the safe-cracker
You get the idea. They're all total one-dimensional cliches without an ounce of nuance or depth. Character development isn't exactly the priority here.
So with the thinly sketched out plot established, we follow the team as they plan and ultimately execute the gold heist aboard the Airbus A380. Which brings me to...
Also read: The Brothers Sun a.k.a Mama Sun Review
Uninspired Execution
You'd think the filmmakers would get creative with the setting and premise, developing imaginative twists and turns to the heist. But no, it's mostly run-of-the-mill fight scenes and CGI-enhanced plane stunts that feel more video game than a movie.
Physically confined to the airplane cabin, Lift fails to generate a true sense of peril or urgency. Other than some green screen backdrops of dazzling scenery outside the windows...we may as well be watching people fight inside an airplane set on a soundstage.
And that dingy lighting does no favors for the sterile, artificial look of the production design. It enhances the feeling that we're just watching actors shuffled between different controlled environments.
The romantic subplot falls even flatter. Hart and Mbatha-Raw share no palpable chemistry, making their passionate exchanges totally unconvincing. In fact, an awkward moment of Mbatha-Raw's Abby moaning loudly in an airplane bathroom to create a distraction is so laughably bad it briefly lifts the film out of its overall mediocrity.
The talented Vincent D’Onofrio brings a touch of wit and personality to his role. And Billy Magnussen leans amusingly hard into a goofy turn as safecracker Magnus, like he wandered in from a different, better movie. But otherwise competent performers like Jean Reno and Sam Worthington make little impression in limited screen time.
Style Over Substance
Like so many recent Netflix tentpoles, Lift feels reverse engineered from a checklist of elements without any substance or soul behind it. Exotic spots on the globe? Check. Major stars? Check. Elaborate action set pieces? Check. Sparks between the leading man and lady? Check.
On a purely visual, surface level, it offers the type of slick, propulsive ride we've come to expect from studio-backed blockbusters. The action moves quickly enough from sequence to sequence that you probably won't find yourself getting bored. F. Gary Gray knows his way around big spectacle filmmaking, lending a baseline level of technical competence.
But that competence only makes the film's deeper creative void all the more apparent. In the end, Lift plays like yet another cynical, production line Netflix "original": Made not because a writer or director felt compelled to share a specific vision, but because the platform's algorithms determined another star-powered action-thriller would generate views.
So I can't really knock the level of craft on display here. Professionals made a professional product for audiences looking for distractionary entertainment. If you just want something easy on the eyes with no mind required, Lift might provide a smooth enough in-flight diversion.
For the rest of us though, it's a disappointingly by-the-numbers heist flick where style wins out over substance by a mile. I only wish the filmmakers had brought the same inventiveness to the story itself as they did to staging gravity-defying fight scenes on an airborne double-decker jet.
Comments