211 (2018)

Elevator Pitch: Somewhere in the Middle East a villainous man is arranging for his ill gotten gains to be transferred to a small town bank in America when his convoy is attacked by a group of mercenaries. They find out where the money will be and set out to steal it. Meanwhile the small town policemen start their day, one car being manned by soon to be grandfather, Mike Chandler, and his son in law. Their work is slightly complicated by the presence of a rebellious teenager, a “ride along”. The mercenaries start the bank raid and are soon in a gunfight with Mike and his son in law. Somewhere in the background is a SWAT team.

Content: No sex or nudity. The four mercenaries, somewhere in the Middle East, but actually a quarry somewhere I think, successfully dispatch the villain and his bodyguards. Later in small town America we see the mercenaries, armed to the teeth enter the bank and terrorise everybody. But out in the street Mike notices their vehicle in a no parking area. Gradually over time, while everybody tells each other that the mercenaries are professionals there is more and more gunfire. A female Interpol agent drifts in and out of frame.

A View: How does it all end? I was distressed when after having an expectation that the villains had worked it all out a la  “Die Hard”, once all the police had collected opposite the bank with enough fire power to destroy the building, the mercenaries attempt to escape on foot and are gunned down. It was as if they had not quite worked out the ending. So there is no getting away from it, this is a bad film, but not quite bad enough to be a DON’T SEE. It is an ALMOST DON’T SEE.

Additional Info: A “Ride-Along” is someone who spends a shift in an emergency vehicle for a variety of reasons. In this film as a punishment for a rowdy teenager.