Hurricane Heist review – This movie blows

The biggest compliment one can pay Hurricane Heist is that it isn’t trying to hoodwink audiences. After all, when a movie lands in cinemas with a title as clunkingly bad as this, after a trailer that’s pure sensory overload, no one who buys a ticket to see it can claim they didn’t know what they were getting into.

But what they’re paying for feels a little too dour at the price. The plot is nonsensical, the action is so over the top it’s down the other side and the assault on the senses is near relentless – as is to be expected – but the material is treated so seriously that any sense of fun is punctured. Didn’t everybody making this film know what they were signing up for?

With a little preamble Hurricane Heist sets out its stall in the seaside town of Gulfport, which is about to be hit with by a massive hurricane called ‘Tammy’. Unbeknownst to the town’s inhabitants, a group of villains is planning to rob a local Federal Reserve facility of $600 million before it’s shredded. One might think that the onset of a hurricane would deter such a venture, but no, the gang’s leader – a scowling, disgruntled former Treasury employee (Ralp Ineson) – plans to use the storm as cover when the team makes their getaway.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, quite a bit. Not only did the gang not bank on Casey (Maggie Grace), one of the guards overseeing the money shredding being feisty enough to abscond with the code they need to open the vault, they also didn’t reckon on two good ol’ boys being thrown into the mix. These are Will (Tobey Kebbell) and Breeze (Ryan Kwanten) who, it turns out, are a meteorologist and a mechanic respectively. The latter is captured early on, but remains a pest to the gang’s efforts, while the former teams up with the escaped Casey and hilarity ensues.

What follows Will and Casey’s meet-cute is a series of events that beggars belief. See if you can keep up.

• Will and Casey use a reinforced car to pull down a cell tower as supersonic winds make Will flail about like a windsock.
• During a shootout in the street, an unarmed Will flings hubcaps into the wind, turning them into deadly weapons.
• In a standoff with the bad guys, Casey shoots out a skylight in a shopping mall turning it into a deadly sucking vacuum.
• While trying to outrun the most destructive part of the storm in a lorry, two of the gang members decide to grope each other.

As I said, none of this should surprise anyone who buys a ticket, but a film this silly really should swing for the fences. In a world where the Sharknado franchise exists, Hurricane Heist really should be a lot more fun than it is.

★★☆☆☆