Disc Reviews

Empire State Review

9th Mar 2014

Based on the true story of one of the largest cash heists in US History, this action thriller stars Liam Hemsworth, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emma Roberts.

After failing to get into police academy Chris Potamitis (Liam Hemsworth) takes a job as a security guard for Empire State Armored Truck Company. But he makes the mistake of letting slip how lax the company’s security is to his best friend Eddie, soon he is drawn in to an elaborate scheme to steal all the cash stored there. Chris must now stay one step ahead of the veteran detective on his trail, and avoid the local crime boss who now wants to know who is stepping on his turf.

The film is set in the 80s and great attention has been paid to set details, but teamed with a very slow pace and unlikable characters it just felt empty. It had potential and could have been a great heist movie but it almost feels like everyone is sleepwalking through the film, almost like the actors knew they weren’t working with great material.

Liam Hemsworth has an interesting wavering accent several times but that the least of his issues. Coming off of The Hunger Games films and into this probably wan’t the best move career wise – a full on action movie to this. As the lead he doesn’t seem comfortable carrying the film on his shoulders, like he isn’t confident in what he has to work with.

Dwayne Johnson plays another police role, he now has this role totally down after playing several movie cops. He has hardly any screen time which is a shame because he comes across as the best actor in the film. In her supporting role Emma Roberts is ok, she has hardly anything to work with and only appears in 3 or 4 scenes. The rest of the supporting cast are just annoying, the character of Eddie, played by Michael Angarano is just awful and every time he is on the screen you want to turn the DVD off.

I liked the inclusion of real life news footage from the event but other than that the plot seems like a rehash of other heist, bank job type movies. It’s not bad just underwhelming, for an action film its just far to slow, and lacking a lot of action.