Review of The Hurricane Heist

By Dave B.

​The Hurricane Heist (2018, currently on Netflix) is an action/disaster/heist movie that takes place in Gulfport, Alabama and involves two brothers who were orphaned during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The younger brother has grown up to become a meteorologist who says he’s terrified of hurricanes (but never seems the least bit scared of them). The older brother is a combat veteran who currently works as a generator repairman. As Hurricane Tammy bears down on Alabama’s Gulf coast, a group of thieves uses the storm as cover to rob a Treasury facility that is scheduled to shred $600 million.

​A heist movie that’s set during a natural disaster has the potential to either be a lot of campy fun, an intense drama, or a mess. The Hurricane Heist is more of the latter than it is either of the former. Its main problem is that it seems to take itself seriously, without having the gravitas of a decent drama. The dialogue is terrible, the visual effects are shoddy, and the script is so lazily written that the only way that the story moves forward is through the unbelievably perfect (or terrible depending upon who you’re rooting for) timing of nearly every significant event. Bad guys need the code to open the vault? Sorry, the only person with the code just left. Heroes cornered? Not to worry! Here comes a tsunami to wash away the villains (and leave our protagonists unscathed). 

​There’s some moderately decent action in The Hurricane Heist and at 102 minutes, it only feels slightly long. With some changes in tone, this could be a passable film to watch on a Sunday morning when your hangover makes it too much effort for you to change the channel on your TV. But it tries to walk the line between a movie like Sharknado and one like The Day After Tomorrow and it fails because that line doesn’t (and shouldn't) exist. Since the movie isn’t very self-deprecating, issues like its complete disregard for the sciences of meteorology, physics, and how phones work is annoying instead of funny. And that’s a damn shame because The Hurricane Heist could’ve been hilarious if a focus on humor had been the direction it’s writers had wanted to take it. It also could have been a good disaster movie if it had better special effects or a respectable heist movie if it had been intelligent and/or interesting. 

I generally try to judge movies on what they are instead of on what they could’ve been, but that can be hard when a movie that could’ve been at least pretty good is instead very bad. This movie is the poster child for that situation: a decent idea ruined in its execution. Best not to spend your time on this one, but if you’ve already had the misfortune of seeing it or if you decide to watch it in the future for some unfathomable reason, feel free to reach out and let me know if it struck you as odd that seemingly everyone in Alabama is an expert semi-truck driver.

Rating: 4/10