Let’s be honest, with some movies you kind of know what you’re going to get just by the title alone. Okay, some more than others, but you get my point, right? Take the action-disaster mash-up “The Hurricane Heist”. Its hysterically literal title assures us of what we are in for – 100 minutes of category five absurdity. The question is how far can you go with it?
Toby Kebbell and his hilariously over-stressed Southern drawl plays Will Rutledge, a government meteorologist in Alabama keeping tabs on the mother of all hurricanes approaching the Gulf Coast. His relationship with his brother Breeze (Ryan Kwanten) has been strained since 1992 when they lost their father to Hurricane Andrew (see the prologue).
Breeze is a mechanic who has stayed in their hometown of Gulfport to run the family’s towing business. He has a repair contract with a U.S. Treasury facility – the same facility a group of hoodlums are planning to knock off. And boy is their scheme an elaborate one full of carefully planned double-crosses, infiltration, computer hacking, and of course one made-to-order hurricane. What they didn’t factor in was dedicated Treasury agent Casey Corbyn (Maggie Grace) who quickly becomes a thorn in the bad guys’ side.
As the hurricane bears down, Breeze ends up in the treasury facility while Will and Casey are on the outside working together to thwart the heist. But to be honest none of that really matters. By this point the story is so silly and inconsequential, functioning mostly to move from one weather-action scene to the next. Admittedly I did get a kick out of some of the set piece antics. Whether I took them the way intended by the filmmakers, I don’t know. But they are just goofy enough to keep things mildly entertaining.
The film is directed by “Fast and Furious” creator Rob Cohen but don’t expect “The Hurricane Heist” to follow in that franchise’s footsteps. It bombed at the box office, unable to make back its semi-meager $35 million budget. Despite that there is some ridiculous fun to be found if your head is in the right place. This isn’t an offensively bad movie (it’s no “Geostorm”). Then again, that’s not much of a bar.
VERDICT – 2 STARS
Keith & the Movies 
Yeah, I heard about this film. It came and then… it was gone. Looked stupid.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. Goofy beyond description. But I will say that if you get a kick out of that sort of silliness it is worth watching if it’s on cable one night.
Yeah, plus it doesn’t have GERARD BUTTWAD!!!!!
You are absolutely correct. LOL
Ugh….this movie was so stupid and laughably bad. Plus, the whole climatic ending sequence was so terrible.
Absolutely true. But that “laughably bad” attribute is what made it bearable for me. Other level stupidity!
Haha…at least you found the beauty within its laughable bad premise. To me, it was just pointless and cliched bad.
Hard to argue with you there. Wouldn’t you love to be in the room when this was pitched? LOL! Somehow they sold it but I’m not sure how.
Moving right along….
HaHaHa!! You mean that exhilarating title doesn’t excite you? 😂
In a word, nope 🙂
and I completely understand why! LOL
Considering how long the disaster film has been out of favor, it would seem trying to make one in the 2010s would be like earnestly recording a hair metal album in the 2010s. Looks like combining it with the heist genre didn’t make it any more palatable.
I’m still a sucker for good disaster flicks. This….isn’t one of them. 😂
Ranks alongside Geostorm and that Gerard Butler submarine movie for about the most fun stupid movies I’ve seen in a while. great fun, but like you said, your brain has to be in the right place.
Exactly. And the title tells you what it is so expectations should be in check from the start.