211 (2018)

Directed by: York Alec Shackleton | 87 minutes | action, drama | Actors: Nicolas Cage, Sophie Skelton, Michael Rainey Jr., Dwayne Cameron, Weston Cage, Cory Hardrict, Ori Pfeffer, Mark Basnight, Amanda Cerny, Michael Bellisario, Raymond Steers, Derek Horse, Fedi Bashur, Jason Francis, Nick Donadio, Sean James, Aleksander Karastoyanov

Long, long ago in a place far away lived an actor who won an Oscar for his magnificent role in ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. This Nicolas Cage has been a king in Hollywood ever since. Unfortunately, something changed in this man’s life. A tax debt turned this proud actor into a sniggering and grimacing parody. Doomed to appear in six movies a year to get out of debt, Cage spends his days in Tinseltown. Occasionally he can be seen in a good role (‘Joe’ and ‘Kick-Ass’), but that is only sparingly and therefore extra painful. He can do it, but he doesn’t: acting. His contribution in ‘211’ will once again go down in the books as a money job. Hopefully Cage made a lot of money from it, so that someone else has had fun with it.

‘211’, as it is so beautifully called, is based on true facts. A bank robbery escalates into a gunfight that will go down in the history books as the longest in American history. Cage plays Mike Chandler. This honorable servant tries to stop the villains and keep his wounded son-in-law alive who has ended up in the firefight.

Well. Letting Cage play a serious role is impossible. This actor specializes in a game of overacting and this time goes over the top again. So traditional. Funnily enough, Cage’s exaggerated play is the bright spot in this deadly boring action movie. Dialogues do not exist in this production. All actions are explained verbatim before being performed (“Go there!”, “They are dangerous!” and “Beware!”). The camera also has an annoying habit of staying in close-up for just too long, which completely kills the momentum of the film. After a dull one-liner, the person who said that boring sentence remains in the picture for a while. Probably to show emotion (which cannot be seen). ‘211’ is slow, despite the tight playing time of 87 minutes.

What should be the highlight of the film – the gunfight – ends in a bloodless event. The shooters stand still like walking targets and miss continuously. It’s like watching the old eighties show ‘The A-Team’. There is no tension in this film. What remains is a dull, glorified TV movie that comes into its own on a commercial channel that still has a spot left at midnight. How about an hour or 2.11 hours?