The Vault (2017) Movie Review
Written By: FR
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Dan Bush
Writers: Dan Bush, Conal Byrne
Producers: Tom Butterfield, Alex Cutler, Luke Daniels, Alan Pao
Date Released: September 3, 2017
Cast:
James Franco as Ed Maas
Scott Haze as Michael Dillon
Taryn Manning as Vee Dillon
Francesca Eastwood as Leah Dillon
Q’orianka Kilcher as Susan Cromwell
Jeff Gum as James Aiken
Clifton Collins Jr. as Tom Iger
Keith Loneker as Cyrus
Rating = 2/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
The Vault (2017) follows the story of Michael Dillon (Scott Haze) who gets into financial trouble with gangsters. The gangsters threaten to kill Michael if he does not come up with some money quickly. In order to come up with the money, he reaches out to his two estranged sisters, Leah (Francesca Eastwood), an ex-con, and Vee (Taryn Manning), who has spent time in the military. Together they rob a local bank but discover that the bank does not hold much money. When the bank employees are unable to provide additional money, Michael and his two sisters start panicking. When an assistant manager named Maas (James Franco) makes an appearance, he offers additional information about a secret vault under the bank that supposedly hold millions of dollars. Maas is extraordinarily and oddly helpful as he tells the bank robbers how to override various security systems to reach the vault. However, what Maas doesn’t tell the robbers is that the vault contains more than just money. The tables are turned when the criminals unlock the true secret of the vault.
Gore Factor
The Vault (2017) incorporates a good amount of violence but there is not much gore. In addition, there are a few graphic scenes. In one notable scene, a man drills himself in the head. In other scenes, the heads of various hostages are covered with bags. Following some of those scenes, bullets are seen passing through the bags. As such, a good amount of blood is visible. However, the film feels more like an action/thriller rather than a horror film until the robbers travel to the vault.
The Grave Review
The Vault (2017) is a film that mixes two genres into one. The film is divided into two equal halves. The first 45 minutes is a straight-up thriller about a bank robbery gone wrong. Then after 45 minutes, it turns into a horror flick in which the robbers are chased by a masked man. However, the film did not transition effectively from one story to the other. Although the plot was fairly straightforward, the direction of the film was unclear. Once the robbers travel to the vault, it was as if they didn’t just commit a crime. The story changes and the first half of the film becomes insignificant. As such, the script and the story were both poorly written and executed.
In addition, there was not much to fill the screen time, and the pacing was overly slow especially in the first half of the movie. As stated above, it takes 45 minutes for the robbers to even discover that there is a vault and then another 30 minutes for anything to really happen. There were some senseless decision also such as the fact that only Michael attempts to open the vault while the two sisters are watching him through a CCTV.
As for the special effects, the film did a poor job at making any impressionable scenes. In addition, any special effects that were used, were overshadowed by the fact that the scenes were visually dark and the camera was unsteady. The screenwriters concluded the film in a generic, lazy way by adding a final jump-scare that felt forced.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives The Vault (2017) two graves out of five graves.
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