With Kevin Hart’s film record, we went into the Netflix original movie “Lift” with high expectations. Unfortunately, we were left utterly disappointed with the predictable plot and bad jokes.

“Lift,” which was directed by Gary Gray, starred multiple main characters including Hart playing Cyrus, a witty and intelligent thief. In addition, Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Abby, an international police officer determined to crack down on a major heist and there are a few other so-called “main” characters. This action comedy film was one of the first movies to pop up in 2024 on Netflix, releasing on Jan. 12. The movie should have set the year off with a bang, unfortunately was more of a weak and uninteresting flop.

The plot follows Cyrus’ group in their attempts to perform a plane heist which begins with their backstory of a previously carried out theft, which unfortunately for viewers, ended up being more engaging than the rest of the movie itself. Finally, the story leads us to the group attempting to steal a large sum of gold from a commercial aircraft. Through their many predictable hardships, the squad makes it onto the plane and starts their journey for the money.

One of the film’s many downfalls was its falsified advertisement, a movie advertised as an “action comedy” was quite frankly the worst of both worlds. Their unfunny jokes left us waiting for the punchline and the action scenes were inaccurately animated, leaving a plane seeming to be the size of an elephant in one shot but looking to be the size of a blue whale in the next. Additionally, the action scenes were nothing special and utterly forgettable. The poorly animated action and unamusing jokes left us wishing for more.

The casting of “Lift” was a good selection with a disappointing outcome. This was shown perfectly with Hart, a movie star we all love dearly, but his character was portrayed poorly throughout the entire movie. All of the clan was unsuccessfully developed, ending with us being confused about who was who in the movie. The producers of the film did not focus on character development enough, leading us to forget the main enemies’ names later on in the movie.

Overall, the movie was a major disappointment. From the cliché plot to the basic and boring jokes, we felt it was a waste
of our time. This movie did not live up to Hart’s standards and would definitely not deserve a spot on his resumé. Had this movie been sold in DVD form, it would have promptly found a place at the bottom of the $5 movie bin in your local store, rightfully forgotten.