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Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Inside Man (2006) in Movies

Jun 11, 2020 (Updated Jun 11, 2020)  
Inside Man (2006)
Inside Man (2006)
2006 | Action, Drama, Mystery
One Wrong Move
Inside Man- is a intense game of cat and mouse. One wrong move and a hostage gets killed. Who will survive and who will die? Will the hostage get what he wants on time? All of these question and more, this movie is a intense roller-coaster. Twist and turns thought it until the very end. You expect one thing to happen, than boom anethor thing happens. Expect the unexpected.

The plot: DescriptionA tough detective (Denzel Washington) matches wits with a cunning bank robber (Clive Owen), as a tense hostage crisis is unfolding. Into the volatile situation comes a woman named Madaline (Jodie Foster), a mysterious power broker who has a hidden agenda and threatens to push a tense situation past the breaking point.

The cast is great, the suspense, the thrills, the drama, the action.

Inside man is a great heist movie.
  
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JT (287 KP) rated Trance (2013) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Trance (2013)
Trance (2013)
2013 | Mystery, Documentary
6
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
"Amnesia is bollocks.” That’s the thought of one of four crooks tasked with trying to discover the whereabouts of a Goya painting worth £25,000,000 from the memory of James McAvoy‘s character Simon.

Simon, an art auctioneer has a problem, well he has a few in Danny Boyle’s latest mind bending heist thriller, Trance. He’s addicted to gambling and in return for wiping his debts clear he agrees to help steel the Goya painting from an auction house for Franck (Vincent Cassel) and his criminal entourage.

In an aggressive and highly charged opening sequence, which sees Simon describe various methods in which paintings have been stolen before from the smash and grab of the old school era to the more high tech, the heist is well under way.

Simon is in the thick of the action as Franck and his accomplices take charge, and as Franck is making off with the painting he’s challenged by Simon who receives a knock to the head rendering his memory practically useless.

After staggering about through all the chaos he ends up in hospital having his brain drilled and drained and any short term memory with it.

With methods of torture clearly not working the gang turn their attention to another, hypnotherapy, and seek help from Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) who attempts to guide Simon through hypnosis in an attempt to find out exactly where he left the painting.

And so begins a journey of discovery, deceit, greed and lust as everything is not what it seems and loyalties will be tested to the fullest.

Simon’s hypnotic journey takes him through the idyllic French countryside, to a church filled with stolen paintings to the slick London underworld as he tries in vein to piece together his broken memory, but what unfolds is not what he or any of us are probably expecting.

Simon, Franck and Elizabeth are all pretty interwoven as characters, it’s almost hard to work out who is playing each other off against the other, whose dream we’re in and at what level. You’ll find that you care about all three of them in a different way when something more is revealed about them.

The remaining trio of Franck’s gang are probably around for far too long than they need to be, but are removed for the final heart pounding third act, which accompanied by a brilliant soundtrack really intensifies the finale.

Trance is written by John Hodge and he’s reunited with Danny Boyle again having previously worked together on such films as Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, where at the crux of it all they too are heist films in a different guise.

Trance is well shot, Danny Boyle is in his element directing a dark, disturbing and at times a head scratching film, I’ve not had this much fun from a Boyle film since Shallow Grave.
  
Fire and Heist
Fire and Heist
Sarah Beth Durst | 2018 | Young Adult (YA)
5
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Wyvern society (0 more)
I picked this up off the library shelf for the title; I took it home for the description. Were-dragon thieves? Awesome. It turns out it's not that simple. For one, the were-dragons have lost the ability to transform over the years - the last dragon to transform was Sir Francis Drake, and the book is set in modern times, so, at least a couple hundred years have passed. And humans know the were-dragons exist! I suppose without the ability to transform, they're little more than rich celebrities with parlor tricks. (Immune to fire to certain temperatures, ability to breathe fire.) What humans don't know is how much the wyverns tend to steal to enrich their hoards. And that some of them can do limited magic.

We open on Sky, sixteen, rattling around her mansion, dealing with her now dysfunctional family of three brothers and their father. Her mother went missing not very long ago, during a heist. The kids have been told she's gone, she's alive, she's not coming back, and to drop the matter. Were-dragon society almost exiled all of them for whatever their mother got into, so they're all on thin ice. Sky, of course, is having none of this. When she stumbles on a lead for where her mother went, she pursues it, and learns all kinds of secrets.

The book was okay, I suppose. I was a little appalled at were-dragon society, and that the dragons just - bow to the authority of the Council. Dragons should have more spine. The heist part was pretty cool, with Sky and her friends figuring out how to take apart every layer of security piece by piece.

I don't know. It was a fluffy book, but not a feel-good book, and I just wasn't that enthused.

You can read all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
  
Honey Heist
Honey Heist
2017 | Dice Game
Silly & Engaging (0 more)
Balancing feels a bit off (0 more)
A Roaring Good Time!
I ran a one-shot of Honey Heist with my TTRPG group and had an absolutely wonderful time with it. The rules are extremely simple (one page long!) and don't need a lot of effort/studying to get a game rolling. Honey Heist runs on a D6 system that's very GM-hands-off. The players completely run this game, and the only time you need to step in is when providing some description, for NPC role-play, or if your players need you to step in and help them out.

My players had a wonderful time with this game, and I did too. Of all the games I've run, it's probably the one where I had the most fun. We couldn't stop laughing, and I really felt engaged in helping my players move along through the story. As with all TTRPG sessions, things never go to plan and even with a really simple one-shot laid out, we had absolutely no chance of finishing a story in one night.

The one thing I will mention that I don't love is the point system in the game. Players have 6 points which they allocate to two dimensions: Criminal and Bear. Dependent on rolls, you move these points (for example, a player wants to knock someone out, they succeed on a roll and move one point to Criminal, thus they now have 4 in criminal and 2 in bear.) I found that pretty quickly balancing was precarious, especially because my players wanted to do a lot that was roll-worthy. We employed the mechanics that allow you to counterbalance a little bit, but it still felt tough to help my players stay leveled (or at least in territory where they were "safe".)

Overall though, this game is a wonderfully good time, and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a fun TTRPG to try out.
  
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Sarah (7798 KP) rated Artemis in Books

Dec 22, 2017  
Artemis
Artemis
Andy Weir | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
7.7 (34 Ratings)
Book Rating
Enjoyable but forgettable
Sadly for Artemis, it isn’t a patch on The Martian but I suppose it did have very big shoes to fill.

Despite not living up to expectations, it’s still a very fun and enjoyable read. Jazz is a loveable scoundrel as the main character, and the rest of the supporting characters are endearing too. To the point where there doesn’t appear to be a main antagonist, at least not one that appears in the flesh. The city of Artemis is well thought out and well written and it’s a great setting for a story. The main problem is with the heist itself, it’s just not a strong enough storyline and I feel like a much better concept and plot could’ve been spun from the first city on the moon.


It’s definitely an entertaining read, but sadly not one id tell people to rush out and read, and is mostly forgettable.
  
Ocean’s 8 (2018)
Ocean’s 8 (2018)
2018 | Comedy, Crime
Forgettable
Apart from the first one, I’ve never been particularly enamoured with the Oceans films, so I never really saw the need to make a new one with only women. Sadly after watching it, i still don’t think it was necessary.

The women’s only heist is actually not a bad idea, but it has been poorly executed with a forgettable and dull plot and an only half decent cast. Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett are great, but the rest of the female cast seem barely used and bit parts at best. I adore Richard Armitage but he too was underused. And I simply can’t understand why they cast James Corden, he is one of the most irritating men around. The plot itself isn’t bad but it’s not good either. It’s a bit dull in parts and even the big reveal at the end doesn’t feel particularly smart or flashy revealing. It was all just a bit ‘meh”.