Scott Man’s Bus 657 (2016) Movie Review

Movie Review: Bus 657 (Heist in English)
Star Cast: Robert De Niro, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kate Bosworth, Morris Chestnut, Gina Carano, Dave Bautista, Mark Paul Goseelaar and D B Sweeney; Directed by Scott Man; Cinematography by Brandon Cox; Written by Stephen Cyrus Sepher and Max Adams
Censor Certificate:  A & Runtime: 94 Minutes.

The title of Bus 657 should indicate that you’ve seen this kind of movie at least 65 times before. But this is a kind of film in constant conflict with how ridiculous it is and how enjoyable it could have been. It needs to go over the top, but this won’t even look up.

Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is without the means to pay for his daughter’s medical treatment. He goes to his Casino boss, The Pope (Robert De Niro) who turns him down flat. In desperation he teams up with Cox (Dave Bautista) and his loose cannon gang to rob a casino, which is owned by Pope. When things go south, they’re forced to hijack a city bus 657. By which time, Pope has sent his heavies to retrieve the swag and sort out anyone, who helped them to loot.

Don’t be fooled by the wallposters and trailer cuts of Robert De Niro in serious role. Niro has barely 10 minutes of the film time. But even then he blows away the leads with his onscreen charisma. Characters wise every one performs a pretty typical unidimensional personality in the film, without much grey shades. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has a decent appeal to keep you interested and Morris Chestnut, puts a fine twist in the henchman concept. Dave Bautista looks good and rest of the characters are pretty suave, but it’s well acted suavity.

Director Scott Mann, whose Tournament was both silly and dumb fun seems to have utterly checked out for this one. Surely that’s the only explanation for what may be the whackiest realization scene yet deployed in an English film. (That provoked the first and final laugh for the film).

Bus 657 is a strange mixture of Speed, Ocean’s 11, The Unusual Suspects and John Q without the élan, wit or style of those films. There are couple of passable fight sequences, including one with the tear gas. But the plot is pretty thin, the chases are uninteresting, and the script is so dull you’ll want to check your social updates during the screening.

Survi Review: 1.5/5