July 17, 2018 – More than once during this film I felt a distinct fear of heights. Maybe it was because I watched it in 3D, but it really did evoke that intense feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, thanks to Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit.

This is a combination disaster movie (“The Towering Inferno”) and action movie (“Under Siege”) along with elements of crime drama and heist movies. While it is derivitave, predictable and silly in spots (there is even a high-tech “hall of mirrors” kind of action scene which dates back to 1947's “Lady from Shanghai” and 1973's “Enter the Dragon”) it is also very entertaining and suspenseful.

Our hero, Will Sawyer (played by Dwayne Johnson of “Rampage”) loses a leg in an explosion but gains a wife (the doctor who treated him in the hospital after the explosion) as well as two children. Sawyer has a small security consulting business. He unexpectedly lands a huge contract with a Hong Kong billionaire, Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han of “Ghost in the Shell”) because of the recommendation of one of Zhao's employees, Ben (Pablo Schreiber of “13 Hours”) and old buddy of Sawyer's from the FBI who was injured in the same explosion that took Sawyer's leg. Right away, you can tell that Ben is up to no good.

Sawyer soon finds himself in the middle of an enormously ambitious and complicated heist to try to grab Zhao and a curiously ornate hard drive, which is actually a MacGuffin, that everybody is trying to grab. Sawyer was supposed to be the fall guy in a scheme that includes setting fire to a skyscraper, trapping Zhao and the flash drive inside, where both could be captured and spirited away by organized crime figures.

This heist operation involves a whole army of bad guys led by the very evil Kores Botha (Roland Møller of “The Commuter”) along with his pretty, but deadly, sidekick, Xia (Hannah Quinlivan of “The Shanghai Job”) a character much like the one played by Maggie Q in “Live Free or Die Hard.” The heist, as a concept, doesn't make much sense, but it does lead to a lot of good action scenes.

As you would expect, the action in the movie takes place in and around the skyscraper. There are a lot of scenes with Sawyer hanging on to the edge of the building (the world's tallest) walking along narrow ledges far above the ground, dangling from ropes, dodging knives and bullets, fighting, escaping from police and raging fire, but he is not the only hero. Sawyer's wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell of the “Scream” movies) turns out to be an action hero too. She is certainly no helpless woman in distress.

The other hero is a smart Hong Kong cop, Inspector Wu (Byron Mann of “The Big Short”) who has enough sense to ignore bad advice and follow good advice when he hears it. Of course the plot does put a child, Georgia Sawyer (McKenna Roberts) in jeopardy, which is not a credible plot device in this kind of film since you know the child will absolutely not be harmed. However, the child in jeopardy does advance the plot as the desperate father will go to any lengths to save his daughter from death.

This movie is like an advertisement for duct tape. After Sawyer binds is own wound with duct tape, he says something like, “If there is a problem you can't fix with duct tape, then you haven't used enough.” He also uses duct tape for sticking to walls like a fly and for a hidden gun trick. He also finds novel uses for his artificial lower leg.

While the plot is predictable, there are a few little twists here and there that defy expectations. I was not expecting much from this film, but as an action film it delivers the goods. I found it visually exciting, suspenseful and entertaining. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2018 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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