Explosive shootouts, thrilling police chases, compelling characters, and riveting storylines are all elements that combine to make the bank heist movie one of the most exciting and high octane sub-genres and movies out there. There are few genres that give audiences more adrenaline than a good heist film. From iconic classics such as Heat, the Ocean’s quadrilogy, Den of Thieves, to Michael Bay’s recently released Ambulance; this amazing subgenre is absolutely packed full of some of the greatest films ever made.
Adding itself into the extensive set of bank heist movies is William Kaufman’s recent release The Channel. Everything we love about bank heist movies can be found in The Channel. It has visceral gun fights and shootouts as well as thrilling police chases which makes it so much fun to watch. However, although marketed as a bank heist movie, isn’t really about the heist. Instead of concentrating on their robbery activities in question or being pursued by law enforcement and criminals alike now chasing after them; this film tells us about two brothers who have become buddies.
Therefore, The Channel is not just great fun but an involving character driven story that will leave one biting their nails till their fingers bleed. This means that every scene in The Channel has powerful performances which end up making it an action-packed thriller for a bank heist movie you cannot afford to miss.
The Channel follows Jamie (Clayne Crawford) a desperate criminal and Mic (Max Martini) an out-of-control ex-marine as they attempt to evade the authorities after a bank heist goes awry. As they look for ways how to survive anything in this intense and emotional storyline.
Like I said earlier on though “The channel” is secondly a Bank Heist Movie: it does offer something particularly unique when compared with other works in its genre since it presents what happens once the team of robbers have completed the job. We typically see a long build up to the actual heist. This usually involves getting together a team of professionals who have planned the whole event to its tiniest detail, which often climaxes in that moment when they think everything has gone wrong only to find out later it was all part of their strategy in most cases, through an unbelievable twist.
However, “The Channel” throws you into such robbery as we meet our main characters right before robbing a bank. After the heist and an awesome shootout, the crew, most notably Jamie and Mic, have to risk it all in order to escape New Orleans.
While The Channel delivers on action by the bucketfuls, what will keep audiences glued is the relationship between these two brothers that are so hopelessly flawed. Mic is completely off his rocker. Violence fuels him so much that if there isn’t any around him at any given time; he will do anything including making sure anything else around him turns violent too. Jamie who’s Mic’s younger brother does everything for his family and newborn baby. He doesn’t want to resolve everything in violence, but he seems to always be cleaning up Mic’s mess. Plenty of riveting arguments and dialogue moments between both Max Martini and Clayne Crawford were seen throughout this movie.
Though incredible and immersive are some of its other strong points; it’s actually the personalities or characterizations of these two brothers coupled with great performances from their actors themselves that would keep viewers entangled throughout till climaxing section.
Based on its brief length of only an hour and a half, The Channel does not lack in action scenes. From the beginning, the film thrusts its audience into an amazing Hardcor Henry-like opening that sets the stage for the whole movie in terms of its action. Then its gun fights are all cool.
Such is what each of these shootouts involves: it is inspired by Michael Man’s Heat as much as other aspects of the film. The absence of music combined with emphasis on sounds of gunfire serves to give authenticity to the shootouts, raising the stakes and tension levels. Maybe this scene can be termed as having brought out intense feelings when Mic stands against policemen who want to kill him so that his brother could be spared.
One more thing about The Channel that will make one fall in love with it is how much tension there is throughout the movie. Certainly audiences will feel plenty of tension during such moments; however, I am talking about our main actors sitting at a traffic light waiting for it to change while an unwitting cop stares them down which would really cause any viewer’s heart rate go up.
Similarly, during one of the most important moments in film, our main group has to go through some awful acid torture. No visual results are shown but you can still hear someone screaming after having acid poured onto their face and no doubt you will cringe if you listen carefully enough. Kaufman really makes lots of moments from The Channel filled with suspense.
Let us face it guys; not many people are desperately longing for a big screen adaptation of Grand Theft Auto (GTA), which was extremely popular video game series. With large open worlds, intricate details and a huge cast, there too many things that fans need to investigate or ask for GTA film rather than hope for or even imagine GTA being converted into live-action version whatsoever. Nevertheless, The Channel may just be the best Grand Theft Auto movie ever created.
A non-stop barrage of police car chases, vehicle switching, pedestrian stealing, bank jobs, interesting villains and brutal torture scenes that make this film truly amazing if you are a fan of the game or at least drive your thoughts back to the game itself for some more wild mayhem.
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