Movie Review: American Heist (2014)

James Kelly(Hayden Christensen) is doing everything he can to get by.  Living in New Orleans post-Katrina and trying to better his life after a stint in prison has proved to make things difficult.  James' situation doesn't get any easier when his brother Frankie(Adrien Brody) is released from prison and gets the two brothers mixed up in a heist.

Sounded promising.  I love a good heist movie so what can go wrong here?  I wasn't expecting this movie to "wow" me but what it did do, I didn't expect.

Nothing.

Okay, maybe not "nothing" but it sure didn't do much.  When I think of a heist movie, I think of something where there's a well thought out plan.  Heck, even if the plan doesn't work, something cool usually happens.

Not here.

I do get that we were supposed to be attached to the inner struggle of Hayden Christensen's character.  The troubles with his brother, winning back the affection of his lost love Emily(Jordanna Brewster), trying to get a small business loan and being a terrible auto mechanic.  He tells Emily he needs to replace the carburetor in her new Fiat.  I do feel that if this was the direction of the film, there should have been more exploration into the lives of those involved in James' life.  Jordanna Brewster was a nice surprise for the film and there probably should have been more done with her.

So with the world taking a crap on James, Frankie is out of prison and gets him in on the worst heist ever.  It didn't even feel like the heist was supposed to be successful as Ray(Tory Kittles), the co-leader of the group, just wants to stick it to the banks and going for a Grand Theft Auto video game looking life.  Sugar(Akon) is the other leader of the group.  Must be because he did the music for the film.   I'm really glad this movie was only an hour and thirty four minutes.

There were also some weird camera angles.  Not sure if they strapped Go-Pro cameras to the actors and told them to bob their heads while they walk.  I don't know where the accents are from either.

Watch at your own peril.  American Heist gets 1.5 out of 5 Pile Drivers.

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Original Comic Book: Blasto the Clown - Issue 1 - Blasto Begins

Blasto the Clown is a book from the mind of Kevin Moyers by way of very odd circumstances.

Blasto was a character conceived for another friend, Jeff, to play in real life.  He was to be a clown for a fart fetish video.  Page two was basically shout out to the origin.  The video never happened but the creative, or twisted rather, minds of Abnormal Entertainment had other plans for a face painted hero.

One night, during a recording of Maskerpiece Theatre, Kevin Moyers said to me he had the perfect project to work on with me.  He said it was about a farting clown named Blasto and that was all I needed to hear.  We met up one day and after a few(okay, many) beers and after three quarters of the day wasted, we came up with the first issue of Blasto the Clown.  Kevin already had the origin in mind, we just needed a good way to showcase his newly found "power."

This was a great project for me to immerse myself in.  I have always enjoyed drawing comic books and this gave me an outlet.  I actually left my full time job to work on this, and other projects.  We were able to unveil Blasto at Phoenix ComiCon as a short film, you know, because we added voices and sound effects to it.  The pages were done in pencil and ink with the colors added digitally.  The cover, an homage to Marvel's Amazing Fantasy #15, was all done digitally.

Okay, I'm done yapping, here's Blasto Begins!

Blasto Begins can also be viewed on YouTube here:  https://youtu.be/188Y_vCxF0s

Please check out all of our blogs here on Maskerpiece Theatre and listen to our podcasts that come out every Friday.
I also do movie reviews for CinemaHeadCheese.Blogspot.com

Be sure to follow Blasto on Twitter: @BlastoClown