He's stupid enough to get himself in this situation, but he's kind of enough to not want anyone IN the hostage situation to get hurt. It's not that Michael is a terrible character, it's just that he's a walking contradiction. And there's this constant theme of 'Michael's a good man, you're a decent person, I know you're not bad, why are you doing this' that feels like they wanted this to substitute actual character development. But, again, it's frustrating because they just don't bother to give you any more. They say that Leah, once this is all over, will just up and leave, like she always does. They don't give you any more to work with. Leah and Vee, who both feel responsible for Michael, agree to this heist in order to help him get out of this situation. You know that Michael got into a bit of a mess with some people that he now owes money to. They don't do go in-depth enough for you to get a sense of what's actually driven these three siblings to this point. The family drama is frustrating as shit, because Leah, Vee and Michael probably have a past that's actually worth exploring, but they talk in generalizations.

It's like you're watching three different movies at once and none of them are any good whatsoever. But the fact of the matter is that each genre the film dabbles in ends up sabotaging the others.

This is all fine and dandy and, again, if your scripting is strong enough, then you can make it work. Because it's not just that this wants to be both a bank heist and horror movie, it's also the fact that it tries to be a family drama looking at the dynamic of these three siblings as everything starts to go to shit. It's as if they wanted something that would make them stand out in a crowded independent horror world, but they didn't really wanna put in the effort to make sure the execution of that concept was actually strong. Simple, right? I mean, the whole mixing of genres, at least in this movie, feels a little forced and contrived. Let's see, conceptually speaking, I like this movie, it's a bank heist turned horror movie. Was the wait worth it in the end? Let's find out shall we. But, thankfully, I was finally able to finish this movie. I mentioned what happened a few days ago, which prohibited from making it past 80 seconds of this movie, but when I started watching this yesterday, I had some small issues I had to deal with and I was like 'fuck, not again'. This is the movie that didn't wanna watch itself. I suppose that's not really relevant, but it is worth pointing out. It was either that or Franco decided to do one of his buddies a solid by appearing in his movie. I like Taryn Manning, but she's obviously not as widely known as Franco is. And I like Franco, but there's no reason he's here other than to have say that this movie has a major movie star, which makes it easier to score distribution since you can promote the thing around the guy. So, let me get this straight, James Franco got a paycheck to do this movie when all he was gonna do is give an uninspired performance where he spends most of his time tied up to a heater looking suspiciously as the events in the vault play out before him? Must be good to be a movie star.

The vault movie cast