2:22 (2008)

Memorable, crazy movie

Fantastic!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie does have a nice compelling B-movie flair to it. It works on many levels (especially if you like the movies this was obviously inspired by), but mostly in single parts. Put together something seems to be missing to make this stand out. But you can see that the guys who made this might be up to something. So as another reviewer also stated, good things will probably are ahead of us.The actors here are doing the best they can, but a real connection seems to be missing for the viewer. While the ideas themselves are well thought of, the piecing together of those ideas, might have been a bit faster than it should've been.

Perhaps any movie featuring diamonds should say "Thanks, Elizabeth Taylor" in its closing credits acknowledgments. (In this mildly involving hotel hold-up yarn, Val Kilmer also phones in one of his dippiest performances ever, as Maz the OCD stolen jewels cutter.) Maybe such films also should say "Thanks, Marilyn Monroe." (Kilmer's character is one of the few from the old gang who survive till the end of this story.) Maybe the 2:22 filmmakers got all their prop jewelry from the late night infomercials during which Liz used to shill copies of all those make-up jewels Richard Burton had to substitute for make-up sex when he was too drunk to get it up. (Most of the plot developments of 2:22 have a strong "been-there, done-that" feel, as if the producers gave the screenwriters a file folder containing their favorite dozen heist flick scenes, and told them "pick any six.") The best efforts of the estate lawyers behind the legends of Liz and Marilyn do not change the fact that the diamond cartel has butchered thousands of people, destroyed millions of lives, and stockpiled about 3,457 diamonds of .5 carats or more for every man, woman, and child alive on Earth today--all starting because the price of these relatively common whitened chunks of coal had dropped to 10 cents per carat! (Now, THAT story would make a GREAT feature film, but the South Africans will exterminate Hollywood sooner than see it released.)

The script is shallow, the editing choppy and discontinuous. Contains multiple scenes of animal abuse and child neglect which would be OK if they had some bearing on the story, but they are written as if to offer some kind of bizarre comic relief.The characters lack depth and the photography is mediocre. The editing seemed to include scenes that could or should have been deleted for lack of contribution to the story. The sound track is also horrendous - after one rather depressing scene it cuts to a fast driving scene with upbeat music and the transistor is jarring to say the least. Avoid like the plague or you will walk away disappointed and disturbed.

I am overall very disappointed with this film and go along with the second comment posted on this forum - I think I must also be dense, having watched the film against my better judgement a second time to try and understand it. there is a hollowness to the film and a shabbyness to the ending which made the half hour really drag. I just didn't get it what happened when they completed their task at the Hotels and got off with the heist. These are supposedly four experts who have worked together before and who knew what to do, didn't seem like it to me, it was all rather amateurish although the concept of the theft/heist itself on New Years Ave and the inter-action with the Hotel Guests in the middle of the night created genuine intrigue admittedly. this for me is a poor mans Ocean 11/12/13 and doesn't come close. The acting is very average and you would hardly notice Val kilmer at all. Overall a bit down. As for the title, well, the film itself lent itself to a more imaginative one than to simply call it after the time when they entered the Hotel to do the Heist. If you rave about this movie, you haven't seen a good movie in ages I suggest.