Lift Parent Guide

Cyrus (Kevin Hart) and his team are some of the best thieves on the planet, stealing art from wealthy people they deem undeserving. Unluckily for them, they’ve caught the attention of Interpol, which offers the team immunity for their crimes on one condition: they need to steal half a billion dollars of gold off a plane before it gets into the hands of a shadowy group bent on destruction in the name of profit.

Our lovely editor here at Parent Previews knows that heist flicks are my thing, so she’s taken to assigning them to me, much to my delight. Lift has all the makings of a stellar heist: an international cast, a fun premise, and high stakes. It also has the added bonus of high production values, with fantastic cinematography and direction. Unfortunately, all those good components don’t quite add up to a home run thanks to a weak script. The characters are severely underdeveloped, a serious deficit in a genre where much of the fun comes from uncovering characters’ backstories and watching the interactions between them. The story also starts to fall apart in the third act, as the film takes a turn from caper to action, thereby muddling what could have been a clear story.

In a strange decision by director F. Gary Gray, Kevin Hart plays an uncharacteristically reserved and un-funny character, which seems like a waste of his talents. He’s not bad in any way; the script just doesn’t give him anything to do except magically provide solutions to every problem. The rest of the cast give great performances as well, but again the script doesn’t give them much to do. Half of the heist doesn’t even involve most of the team, which takes away a lot of the fun.

That said, I think the first half or so of Lift is fantastic. It’s fun and has some great hijinks. The heist plan is suitably complicated and original and promises a great time. That first hour is worth the runtime; it’s just a weak third act that really brings the entire production down. Leaning into the action potential of a heist is not a bad idea if it’s done well but this script just missed the mark.

The final act’s focus on action pushes the movie’s level of violence higher than expected for this genre, making it unsuitable for younger audiences. It’s also worth noting the high volume of profanity, with approximately three dozen curse words. For fans of heist films, like myself, Lift could be worth your time, if only for the first hour when it really shines. But otherwise I think the real crime in this movie is the theft of the much better story it could have been.