When two small time cops try to rob a drug dealing network’s hidden vault, thing don’t go as they expect – which is to be expected.
It’d be a dull film if everything just worked like clockwork.
What is genuinely surprising though is that this small, modest crime tale is quite a bit better than it is expected to be.
I like that stuff happens in it, and then other stuff happens that is slightly different from what you anticipated, and then other stuff happens that is different from what you anticipated, so by the time an hour and half has rolled by, the film is almost completely different from the one you started watching, but without any jarring shocks or shifts in tone
Take Cage’s performance, for example.
He starts out as a put upon, humble Cage.
He’s a conscientious and observant officer of the LVPD, but this doesn’t seem to be getting him anywhere with the Las Vegas plod.
Then, after some off duty undercover work, he discovers a warehouse containing a giant safe where drug dealers appear to be stashing their money and he becomes crazy, wacky, not-quite-bad Lieutenant Cage.
He tries to convince fellow officer Wood that this could be interesting money making opportunity for them. But once they have committed to his scheme, his character begins to shift again.
The script works through omission, never allowing you to become too sure of where you are.
Wood, whose performance swims in the opposite direction to Cage’s, going from wacky stoner to voice of reason, is a very effective foil.
It is Cage’s show though.
Rating: 3/5 stars
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