Dir: Andrew Lawrence
Release Date: 2020
“A professional thief, somehow $40m in debt, has his family held hostage until he robs the ‘Money Plane’, a casino in the sky housing the World’s most dangerous criminals”
I often enjoy WWE movies but this is not one of theirs at all. I realise that this statement could be applicable to the majority of films ever made, but I say it for a reason.
Edge.
Adam Copeland is Edge from the WWE, not The Edge from rock band U2, though that would have been interesting casting.
Director, Andrew Lawrence, is the younger brother of Joey and Matthew Lawrence if you still remember them? Joey (of Blossom fame) is in this film but that still might not be worth looking him up. Both Andrew and Matthew also get a role in this so well done to the Lawrence boys.
Andrew Lawrence’s IMDB page suggests that, “Andy is loved by people everywhere for his charming smile, accurate impressions, good attitude, sweet countenance, and many more talents.”
PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! I remember when that used to get me through life as well but that’s where our lives cease to run parallel, as I have not yet written and directed a movie starring former WWE star Edge, Kelsey Grammer, Thomas Jane and the beautiful Denise Richards. NOT YET.
You have there the cast btw. Pretty impressive I think you’ll agree. Enough of that and we’re straight into the movie.
Adam Copeland (Edge) is called Jack Reese and he is wearing the perfect disguise of a pair of spectacles – obviously he is also wearing clothes as a naked guy wearing spectacles is still something people would notice.
He’s entering an Art Museum. The words ‘Art Museum’ appeared on screen, and I actually wondered if it was a location caption or an actor name though, had it been the latter, it would have been an entirely different start to the movie. There’s an outrageous amount of heavily armed guards at this museum and he requires a security pass to access it which seems excessive.
Nevertheless, Reese is narrating his way through the whole thing as he has a hidden earpiece in his ear. He narrates to others who watch him on a spectacles-cam who alert him to the fact that the painting he is about to steal is……… ALREADY GONE! It’s a set-up! ABORT! ABORT!
Reese is locked in the vault but is quickly rescued by a gas cannister toting hot chick associate who kicks the shit out of all of the guards and, after trading gunshots with everyone, they both emerge unharmed and head to HQ.
Kelsey Grammer appears now and ridiculously declares his name is Darius Emmanuel Grouch III AKA ‘The Rumble’. I wonder what the previous 2 Darius Emmanuel Grouch’s were called?
‘The Wrestlemania’ and ‘The Summerslam’, I guess.
He then fills us in on knowing that Reese is a legendary gambling man, he owns him and the like. He also says he needs to rob the Money Plane or he’ll kill his family. I counted how many times they mentioned the ‘Money Plane’ if you’re interested. Full stats at the end.
How the bloody Hell do you get $40million in debt?
Who is still letting you gamble if you are down over $39million?
I mean, each year, I bet £1 against a friend that I’ll finish above him in the Premier League Fantasy Football League, and he hasn’t even paid me for that yet (at time of writing) so I’m sure as Hell not gonna increase it to tens of millions. Idiots.
Anyway, on with this Money Plane nonsense. Apparently, there is a billion in crypto and millions in cash on board and ‘The Rumble’ wants Reese to take it down. It flies in International airspace so can’t be touched by the law (?!) and contains the ‘baddest motherfuckers’ in the world and that any bet is legal.
“The Money Plane has you covered. You wanna bet on a dude fucking an alligator?…..Money Plane”.
What an unusual thing to want to bet on. I mean, what situation would that be a possible outcome? I guess we’ll see. Incidentally, I would bet that the guy would be unsuccessful. Any takers? No? Screw you guys, I’m off to find the Money Plane!
‘The Rumble’ then mentions Reese’s family and even has a lovely photo of them which is, of course, a kind of a threat.
His wife is Denise Richards which must be nice.
Fun fact: The henchman of ‘The Rumble’ is called ‘P-Roach’.
Reese and his team all meet up to discuss the new mission, which, as is customary, is going to be the last one before they all retire from this crazy life. As is also customary, we get to see the plan unfold on screen as Reese lays it out to us and his team:
Reese will be Philip Monroe, a human trafficker who fortunately, nobody has ever met in person.
Trey will be on board with Reese and act as his associate.
Isabella will be a flight attendant and on board to assist.
Iggy will be the ground man.
Reese takes over the cockpit, Isabella opens the vault, Trey hacks some shit and Iggy receives the transfer on the ground and they all parachute out with the cash before anybody notices. There is nobody else in any of these scenes to notice anything so I doubt it will be quite this easy. Nobody mentions that though and they all seem fine with it except Iggy who moans about being left on the ground.
Fun fact: Iggy is played by write/director, Andrew Lawrence. Feel free to check out his charming smile, accurate impressions, good attitude, sweet countenance and much more.
We cut to Reese at home now and having a little pillow fight with his daughter to some guitar music before bed.
He kisses his Denise Richards wife who either doesn’t know about his $40m gambling debts or she is just sure something will work out so doesn’t give him any shit for it.
Reese reads Robin Hood (clever, eh?) to his daughter before she immediately goes to sleep even though her parents are still sitting on her bed just talking at normal volume. This is ended abruptly when his wife says come to bed. Seems odd that they go to bed at the same time as their young daughter but, I suppose if Denise Richards suggests you go to bed, you do exactly that.
Reese awakens in the night and heads downstairs to find a night-time intruder in his house. It’s none other than Thomas Jane as Harry! Harry is their daughter’s Godfather and enjoys a pipe while they discuss things that surely they both already know. Discussing Reese’s gambling days and that he had the keenest instincts Harry had ever seen ($40million says otherwise) we then find out that Harry was the youngest Major General in the US Air Force even though this is massively irrelevant as he will be looking after the girls and running ground intel while Jack does his thing.
Of course, this is all agreed and we head off to witness ‘the heist of the century’.
Isabella boards the plane dressed as a hostess and has to deposit all weapons before doing so.
“ALL weapons”, says security and she sheepishly gets another one out from, I can only presume, her vagina and hands it in.
This does not arouse any suspicion though it did slightly arouse me.
Mr Philip Monroe and his associate Mr McGillicuddy board now with Trey looking every inch the good old Irishman he clearly isn’t. Both actually look terrified and hardly the cool and confident international criminals they are supposed to be.
Reese has his hair in a top-knot now as well.
They are told to deposit funds and receive a ‘wallet-watch’ which allows them to access their account and wager freely.
We meet the Concierge and the Bookkeeper now.
The Concierge is played by Joey Lawrence whose smile is not mentioned in his IMDB mini-bio but he was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World back in May 1994 so he’s always got that.
I narrowly missed out that year but I did win a Coca-Cola mini football juggling competition in Woolworths around that time so it kind of balances itself out.
The rules onboard are explained. No fighting, no murder and no dismemberment unless it is part of the wager and there is a zero tolerance to cheating!
At least the dudes can fuck an alligator at their leisure.
After a smooth take-off, we find out that the Concierge is also a pilot which is yet another piece of irrelevance as this information or skill is never used or mentioned again.
We get a virtual tour of the Money Plane with captions and everything – I also made notes of how many times ‘Money Plane’ was mentioned in captions because I kind of do shit like that. Full stats at the end.
There’s an international arms dealer on board as well called Ivan Vitali (played by the great named Aleksander Vayshelboym) who is pretty much the only other character who brings anything to the film. He is told that all flight attendants are off limits, but women are available upon request.
His henchman is inexplicably called Reid the Rose in the credits though it's never mentioned, and he is played by someone actually called Reid. Reid Perkins. Not important at all but I just thought I’d mention it.
There is some dialogue where Reese chastises Ivan for sexually harassing Isabella and Ivan reminding him that he is supposed to be a notorious human trafficker and, as such, hardly has any moral high ground. If having Trey play an old Irishman wasn’t stupid enough, this is just another example of how poorly planned this whole thing is.
First game up is Texas Hold ‘Em and the quite clearly false moustachioed cowboy is straight in for this one. This big old ‘cock-duster’ moustache guy is ‘J.R. Crockett’ and he is played by Matthew Lawrence, the middle brother of the 3 who you probably won’t recognise from Boy Meets World and Mrs Doubtfire.
This may or may not be due to his fake moustache.
No mention of his smile on IMDB either.
Reid the Rose punches a waiter for no reason whatsoever and they are reminded of the rules. It’s just Crockett and Monroe (Reese( Edge)) left in the game and the cowboy wins with a full house. Reese really is shit at gambling. What an idiot.
He then makes his excuses and leaves for some ‘private time’. Mr McGillicuddy will be taking his place as a representative.
As winner, J.R.Crockett gets to choose the next event and he chooses Roulette.
Isabella heads below to get a really big bag ready for all of the cash when Reid turns up and asks what she’s doing. After being reminded of the rules that he isn’t allowed down there, he customises a classic phrase and declares that rules were made to be fucked which I am pretty sure doesn’t make much sense. Regardless of this nonsense and obvious attempt at sexual threat, we head back up to the game of roulette.
But wait……….It’s Russian Roulette!
This is an excuse for terrible attempts at comedic dialogue between Trey and Crockett over the top of some bluesy guitar riffs until Crockett declares he can’t be beat and shoots himself dead.
Reese knocks on the cockpit door and when the pilot opens it, he sucker punches him out. Unfortunately for him, there’s a huge co-pilot who looks a cross between Gordon Ramsey and the guy who plays Bunchy in Ray Donovan (Dash Mihok).
Apparently, Reese didn’t expect a co-pilot which again shows how awful his whole planning was from the start. They have a very cramped fight as the cockpit is a small location.
Done well, this can be a good show of skills (Matt Damon and Scott Adkins have a good close space fight in a Bourne movie if I recall) but this is bargain bucket head-banging-on-the-ceiling-a-lot. Eventually Reese wraps the headphones around the co-pilot’s neck and he passes out. The inevitable turbulence and reassurances of having the best pilots is resolved as Reese take to the controls and gets his earpiece in to speak to Trey before the co-pilot immediately regains consciousness and slips his fingers in Reese’s mouth for some reason.
After banging his head on absolutely everything he could (without damaging anything it appears), the co-pilot is really out for the count and Reese can get all Comms up and running.
He establishes contact with Iggy on the ground who is in a quarry and slowly setting things up to another Blues riff. By setting things up, I mean he just has a tangle of wires everywhere and has done very little except put some camo cover on his car.
“I’ve still got some to do”, he understates.
“Nicely done”, says Reese who clearly doesn’t know he’s actually done pretty close to fuck all.
Back in the sky, Trey is still ridiculously nervous while Joey Lawrence as the Concierge shoots an extra in the head mid-sentence for having cards up his sleeve during some nothing game we don’t see.
There’s a big announcement that the next wager is a timed event though we aren’t told what the Hell it is until after Trey eventually just bets by saying ‘17’.
Everyone except him seems to know what the bet was so why is it just him totally oblivious to the programme?
Turns out it’s the old classic, ‘Man vs Cobra’!
They clearly couldn’t afford a cobra, so you don’t get to see anything but a man lying on the floor, screaming and hear some hissing.
Everything is interrupted by Kelsey Grammer listening to hip-hop as he rings Reese for an update and declares he even wants a live feed of a mini camera he added to the pack.
Somehow, Trey wins the bet for how long a man can lie on the floor pretending a snake will bite him and they offer another wager which is explained even less than the previous one.
They all watch a tablet which shows 2 men sitting at a table, drinking in a room while the clock ticks and the amount of money goes up on the screen.
Suddenly, one of the men gets up, grabs an axe and cuts off the hands of the other.
Joint winners this time! Yamada (some Japanese woman I didn’t bother introducing) and Trey.
What the Hell was that bet?
On the ground, Iggy has managed to erect (heh heh) a TV aerial or something and gives them a green light.
If that was seriously all he had to do, why didn’t he do it sooner?
They’ve been in the air for bloody ages and he’s only just sorted that out?
Back to the inexplicable wagers up in the clouds, we get a guy in a pool filled with, I can only assume, piranha. He is stripped to the bone in 1m56s which somehow means Trey wins again! Thankfully, this now ends the bullshit betting aspect of the film though the dude fucking an alligator was never explored.
Maybe they left that one for us to do our own bets on.
Isabella looks to find the cash but a guard is obviously posted by the vault. She starts by suggesting some sexy action but before he can even ‘warm’ to the idea, she throws her shoes at him and they fight.
This fight ends with her somehow ripping off both of his ears and then hitting him with a fire extinguisher.
Anyone know of another film where that happens? I’m not sure I do.
She then uses his fingerprint to open the vault and steal lots of cash and also some drugs, though why that is on board will never be mentioned.
Harry phones Reese and tells him that the painting he was supposed to steal in the shit opening scene is apparently already owned by ‘The Rumble’ and is on display in Rome.
So, they were set up by the same guy? No way?! This was never even on my radar! Of course it was, it was obvious to everyone except the ‘actors’.
Reese quickly informs his team as Trey and Isabella shift their haul but realise they can’t take all the cash (thought they’d planned this?). They stash it and head back up so they won’t be missed even though Trey has won every nonsensical bet they’ve had so he would pretty much be missed immediately.
That said, nobody seems to give a shit where ‘Mr Monroe’ went immediately after the first wager so maybe not.
I’ll tell you one person who cares, Reid the Rose who, while his boss, Ivan, is up there betting on how long 2 men can sit near each other before one of them chops off the other man’s hands, is still lurking about down there spying on them.
Reese phones, ‘The Rumble’, to tell him to find out who set him up on that first art deal (not sure why he bothers) but ‘The Rumble’ is busy torturing a man.
“Don’t you piss yourself!”, he warns and when he can’t hear Reese’s pointless call, he adds, “Shut this guy up”.
As we all know, to the experienced henchman, this means ‘Kill him’, and P-Roach does exactly that which triggers ‘The Rumble’ to revert back to Frasier Crane mode chastising,
“You fucked up my terracotta! This stuff is porous, don’t you know that? It’ll stain!”.
Reese now phones Harry again and gives us some cracking nonsense which proves it is all super hi-tech. He needs to be sent an encrypted message containing the schematics for the failsafe as things have gone South. Brilliant shit. If that wasn’t enough, he then reminds us they are old buddies,
“Remember Brazil?”
“Oh boy, do I”. Sadly, we never find out what happened in Brazil but a great cliché in the old buddy banter.
He then tells Reese’s daughter not to eat all of his M&Ms and heads off to work.
Trey apparently never went back up after all and is in the Server Room.
Ivan is now also down there and follows him.
Apparently, all you need to do to transfer billions of dollars is plug your phone into the wall and it all starts automatically.
Isabella didn’t head back up either and finally gets to fight Reid and, true to form, he says a stupid line before they commence,
“Bitch, here comes Daddy.”
Seemingly upset that Reid gets all the best shit lines, Ivan has a go now and I think he might win (if only there was a wager on the shittest dialogue).
Ivan walks into the server room while Trey is looking at his phone and says,
“Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?”,
“Who me?”,
“Yeah, you stole that cookie”.
Seriously. They actually say that. I think I walked off at that point so I could calm down again before the finale. I’ve just done the same thing again after remembering it all.
Reid the Rose is bloody awful at fighting and is getting his ass kicked by Isabella who smashes bottles over his head, stabs him with the broken bits and then smashes more. No idea where she gets these bottles from but they sure are handy to have in a small corridor when fighting.
Maybe she kept them in the same place as that extra gun she was concealing earlier?
Talented lady.
She eventually ends the fight by stabbing Reid in the head with one of her magic bottles and he perishes.
Ivan also gets in on the smashing glass game as he throws Trey through each door of the servers one at a time. Thankfully, the servers are just CD players piled on top of each other (IMDB Trivia section) and, apart from a BareNakedLadies CD ejecting, the servers are broken.
Transfer halted at 50% and comms are down.
Mercifully for Trey, Isabella enters the room, ignores a ‘Hi Princess’ from Ivan and simply kicks him into the servers and he is electrocuted. No messing about there.
Remember Iggy? He is now under fire in his little quarry as Reese tells him they’ll need to reroute the server on a portable SSD or some shit. They’ve been set up again! What are the chances?
Suddenly, here comes Harry and to signify this, Harry says, “Here comes Harry!” to himself and attacks with a drone.
I always imagined hi-tech armed drones would be quite useful and cool, like a miniature Bat Plane but Harry seems to have knocked this up himself in his shed with some sticky tape as it is just a normal drone with a handgun hanging from it, with which Harry is incredibly accurate and takes out a couple of bad guys.
Iggy is in a little hole and he and a bad guy are firing real close like Leslie Nielsen in Police Squad! Until Iggy actually punches through the dirt and shoots the guy point blank.
Harry continues to narrate what he is doing as he expertly shoots another 4 bad guys in the head with his killer drone. End of scene.
‘The Rumble’ phones Reese for an update but he receives ‘Please hold’ and somehow some soft jazz playing. He is not happy about that and, shouting he doesn’t care who he’s robbing, that he’s the baddest motherfucker on the planet and the like while hitting the table a lot. ‘Please hold’ again makes him hang up and declare,
“Time to burn down the village”.
We re-join Harry now who has stopped narrating his own actions while he makes a tiny amount of spaghetti in a huge pan and adds a small amount of sauce. He also has bread and some vegetables. I would have liked him to narrate that part actually but it was intercut with bad guys dressed in black making their way to the house.
Of course, he senses them just before they confirm their arrival by walking past very large windows and waving flashlights all over the place.
Harry closes the door but doesn’t lock it and they just walk in. Harry just kills them all and then acknowledges that his ears hurt from all the gunfire which is nice to see.
Apparently, the transfer is now complete and they discuss what they will do with their booty (the money, not their asses).
Naturally, after you’ve been through all that, you would be up for just giving it to UNICEF and some Syrian Refugees charity. Well, that’s exactly what they decide to do before Reese plays the call of ‘The Rumble’ shouting about ripping everybody off to the patrons of the plane which they find very interesting. So much so that the Concierge immediately suggests a new wager on how long before ‘The Rumble’ is dead.
The ‘heroes’ leap out of the plane with their cash.
P-Roach decides he wants out but is shot dead immediately for saying so before ‘The Rumble’ grabs an assault rifle while a whole army of other bad guys arrive immediately.
Looks like a gang of armed mercenaries take less time to assemble, locate a crime kingpin and attack than it does for a cobra to kill a man just lying on the floor.
We get a Scarface style tribute which I never thought I’d see from Frasier and the scene fades.
3 months later…… Istanbul……We are at an Art Gallery for an unveiling of a painting but, when we see it, it is a stick man giving us the finger.
Personally, I would have drawn a good old cock and balls but I guess me and Reese are a little different.
Not sure where we go to next (not entirely convinced we were ever really in Istanbul for that brief a scene either) but it is Reese, his wife Denise Richards and his daughter. Reese is on the phone to Harry who tells him that the painting has gone missing and is now worth $60m!
“What’s $60 million split 5 ways?”, laughs Reese but I think he was probably serious with the question – It’s $12m each by the way.
We then see the painting just lying on the floor, outside by a woodpile while Reese goes to laugh and play with his family and pooch.
THE END!
Why would Reese not be taking better care of the painting even before he knew it was worth $60m?
Why would Harry use such a large pan for such a small amount of spaghetti?
Did ‘The Rumble’ actually burn down a village?
How did he get such a preposterous nickname?
Did his terracotta stain as he feared?
Did Trey actually steal a cookie from the cookie jar?
Did the Concierge land the plane after they all parachuted out?
Was Reid really the Daddy of Isabella?
Did Harry’s M&Ms survive uneaten?
Are you one of the people everywhere who love Andy Lawrence for his charming smile, accurate impressions, good attitude, sweet countenance, and many more talents?
Do you remember Brazil?
More questions than answers here. Maybe a sequel will answer them all……….? I hope not.
FAVOURITE CHARACTER:
Harry for just clearly not giving a shit and enjoying himself (Isabella narrowly misses out because, though hard as nails, she wasn’t scantily clad or oiled up)
FAVOURITE MOMENT:
Kelsey Grammer firing an assault rifle while screaming “AAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH” and fading to black.
FAVOURITE LINE:
“The Money Plane has you covered. You wanna bet on a dude fucking an alligator…..Money Plane”.
FAVOURITE DEATH:
Security having both ears ripped off before being beaten in the face with a fire extinguisher.