woensdag 18 mei 2016

7 Minutes (2014)

Summary :
Three friends, Sam, Mike and Owen, are forced by circumstance to commit a brazen robbery. What begins as a simple plan quickly becomes a dangerous game of life and death. As each minute of the robbery unfolds, the stakes are pushed higher and higher.

Genre : Crime
Country : USA

Cast :
Luke Mitchell :Sam
Jason Ritter : Mike
Zane Holtz : Owen

Director : Jay Martin

My Opinion

“There are two rules that everybody knows.
First, don’t go in with anybody who has more to lose than you.
What is the other rule?
You got cement in your ears.
Don’t get caught.”

Are you a big fan of, or you have a fetishism for an abundance of flashbacks, then "7 Minutes" will be perfect for you. Because, believe me, you just bent over to scratch yourself at an annoying place because there's an irritating itch, and before you know it you swallow another flashback. Or you just grabbed for the half-empty packet of paprika chips .... BANG .... another flashback. This was like a doubles match at Wimbledon with four pepped first-rank players. The flashbacks will fly around your ears (backhandwise). So paying attention is the message. Otherwise you've lost the thread in this tangle of intersecting storylines. Indeed Sir, within 7 minutes!

Sam (Luke Mitchell), Mike (Jason Ritter) and Owen (Zane Holtz) are the three central figures. Three schoolmates who are leading a not so rosy life. Sam was an American football star with a scholarship and the accompanying mandatory cheerleader Kate (Leven Rambin). Their future looked promising, but an ankle injury put spikes in the wheel. The end result is a miserable, poor life with Sam working in a factory and his pregnant wife Kate as a waitress in a restaurant. Mike (Sam's brother) is in the same boat (the American Dream boat that sailed as Mike claims) and he tries to survive by selling weed. Owen's life isn't exactly a success story either. He's the son of Mr. B (Kris Kristofferson) who leads the local mafia. Owen just left prison. He got convicted after colliding with an obese security guard in a not so gentle way. To be honest, those guys aren't the brightest minds in this local town.

Yep, they aren't smart. You'll notice that immediatly. When they set up the plan to go into business with a notorious drug dealer, this goes awfully wrong thanks to panicky Owen. An anxiety attack makes him flush XTC tablets, worth $ 62,000, down the toilet of a petrol station. Hence the next stupid idea : robbing Sam and Mike's uncle. This will only take 7 minutes. Voila, and thus the title of the film is also explained. Needless to say that again this is a stupid plan. Who is so stupid to commit a robbery in a town where everybody knows you? And why the hell did they pick someone related to them? It's a plan doomed to fail. Especially when other complications turn up as well. Believe me, the story lines are subtle but also in a complicated way interwoven with eachother. And that makes this seemingly simple bank robbery story unnecessarily complicated.

It reminded me a bit of "Cut Bank". Only the latter was far more cynical and humorous. The three clumsy friends were interpreted in a reasonable manner by the respective actors. But really memorable it wasn't either. Kristofferson's contribution was way too limited to make a judgment, but this kind of character fits him. The only ones that stood out were Kevin Gage, as trigger-happy Tuckey who changed the tone of the film abruptly from average to violent, and Brandon Hardesty as the pathetic, obese Jerome who spontaneously starts crying while looking at himself in the mirror. The bank robbery itself may not look as stupid as the one in "American Heist", but otherwise this film isn't memorable either. "7 Minutes" is an uninspired, ridiculous film that provides momentary entertainment. However, I didn't mind that it took more than seven minutes.