Adrien Brody, left, as Frankie, an ex-con who looks after his younger brother Jimmy, played by Hayden Christensen, second left, with Akon as Sugar and Tory Kittles, right, as Ray.
Adrien Brody is Frankie, a clown ex-con who looks after his younger brother, Jimmy (played by a fast-and-furious Hayden Christensen), to the best of his abilities.
Problem is, his abilities are pitiful – and so is the routine crime drama American Heist, a botched robbery for sure.
This is an incapable film (about a heavily-armed, unofficial bank withdrawal) with a socio-economic conceit.
"The banking institution is more dangerous than the army," spouts a Jefferson-quoting head thug, played by Tory Kittles at his most Denzel-iest.
And so the play for the vault is justified.
Sarik Andreasyan, directing his first English-language feature, busies himself with such tricks as mounting a camera on an actor and pointing the lens at their face.
What he needed to do was catch an episode of Treme, because he was clearly oblivious to the fact that None of his actors bothered to affect a Louisiana accent, even though the action is set in New Orleans.
American Heist, I want my 94 minutes back.
Brad Wheeler