211 (2018) Poster

(2018)

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3/10
They can't get the simplest things right
rowpotdroid10 June 2018
This movie by Nicolas Cage and company is another to add to the bad. Opening credits blew it when they pan a laptop showing a active transfer while she randomly strikes the keyboard senselessly. What were they expecting this to add more realism you could see she was not typing and nothing appears on the screen except the transfer process. Obviously the film's editor should cut this to the floor but they probably thought nobody would care, that's why this is a B movie.
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3/10
Painting by numbers...
CraigNewman19739 June 2018
You like wood? Great, just check out the 'acting' in this abomination. A shame as the camera work is actually ok, but the bloody acting ( if you can call it that) is so stilted and forced it's untrue. I'm about 20 minutes in, but I'm a glutton for punishment... I'll sit through this crap so you don't have too. Yep I'm a martyr. Ok, I've finished it, my opinion hasn't changed, it's bloody awful... Infact I'm knocking a star off from 4 to 3... So contrived it made my eyes bleed.
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5/10
A fairly generic bank-heist-gone-wrong movie...
paul_haakonsen6 August 2018
Granted that I had little expectations for "211" from writer and director York Alec Shackleton when I sat down to watch it. Why? Well, solely because this was just screaming to be another Nicolas Cage movie.

So was it? Both yes and no. Yes, in the sense that he trotted on with his usual stumped performance with just a single grimace throughout the entire movie. No, because the storyline sort of veered from the usual stuff that he participates in.

Was it a good movie? Nah, it was adequate, albeit quite generic. The storyline had its moments, not many, but it had them. But for a bank heist movie, then it offered very little to the cinematic experience that haven't already been seen in other bank heist movies.

The dialogue in the movie was good, and the characters were good, which definitely worked in favor of the movie. However, some of the things that the bank robbers were doing just made so little sense, especially since they were supposed to be highly trained military people.

All in all, an adequately entertaining movie that will suffice if you have nothing more pressing on the to-watch-list. But this is hardly a movie that you will be returning to watch a second time around.
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1/10
Movie made with goofs
masoudhaghi11 July 2018
Warning: Spoilers
The followings are some of the things I've learned after watching the "211" movie with the Nicolas Cage as the main character.

1. When you are transferring the money to list of the accounts, you must randomly type on the keyboard and when the progress bar reach the end to show the completion of the transfers, it must reset and start from the beginning.

2. When the SUV is bullet-proof it can accelerate in a short distance and run to a bulldozer and magically get destroyed.

3. The criminals prefer to kill their only source and go to a local bank in a small town to steal the money instead of torturing the source to give up the account numbers and get back the money the easy way.

4. The person who got bullied in the school must be punished or get expelled from the school because he shows violence when he got bullied.

5. The Interpol is investigating an international case with using a single agent in the field because showing the actual investigation is way too costly and probably would make the movie good.

6. The gun shop man and a veteran must be too careless to leave his keys on the locked guns and also lie about his friend while the picture of them is hanged right above his head.

7. The criminals who want to create distraction, think planning a bomb in a small café is a good idea. And while they would end up dead in the end of the movie, why not kill some more people to make them look dangerous and who cares if they also get arrested, they would probably die for their crimes.

8. When you are going for a bank rubbery, it's also a good idea to park your gate-way car in the red zone and make it easier for the cops to notice your car.

9. When the sniper has a clear shop of the side and the back of the police car, magically does not have a clear shot of the side of the car where the police officers and the kid is taking cover.

10. When the bank rubbery goes wrong it is always a good idea to start killing the hostages, specially the high rank employees or the bank manager.

11. You can die from a gun shot wound in your leg even if you already stop the bleeding.

12. The police officers and swat using blank bullets while the criminals using real bullets and most of their shots are successful. The cops cannot shoot and hit the target in a straight line and kill the criminals with no cover other than the bank curtains. Also, the police offers cannot shoot even in a close range while a high school student know how to use a gun and shoot better than the cop.

13. It is also a good idea to not listen to the Interpol agent who is in-charge of the investigation for the same criminals and go with your own plan to get your man killed. There was a need for the "I've said so" somewhere in the end of the bank rubbery scene.

14. When your phone is turned off because of the low battery, you can charge your phone with a normal battery and turn on your phone immediately.

15. Apparently you can answer the phone call on mobile devices by taking it out of your pocket and moving it near your ear. Also while phone is ringing the screen stays black and does not show the caller. Also it's important to leave the dying patient and answer your phone in the hospital.

16. When your family has problem and the family members are not close as before, you need to kill or nearly kill a family member to make them close again. Also invite a random guy to a family party because he has a phone and always use his phone to take pictures and videos so he can take a new family photo for you.

As you may have mentioned, I've written some of these with sarcasm while the rest are dead serious stuff that I've learned from watching this movie. In just few simple words, I can describe this movie as "Just another crappy bank rubbery movie" or "Just another bad Nicolas Cage movie".
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1/10
Bored After 10 Minutes
harjac-5851716 July 2018
This was a mishmash of a movie. Wooden acting. Unrealistic. Bad plotting. Starts with a woman typing frantically on computer during a download. Why? Then people get blown up and killed for no apparent reason. Then the movie begins with a contrived situation about bullying so some kid can go on a ride along because it's in the script. After that, you have the tried and tired daughter and estranged father conflict. I like Nicolas cage. I think he's made some great movies -- i.e. Face/Off and Family Man -- but nothing worthwhile in at least 10 years. And worst of all, the acting was like planks of wood interacting. I could smell the ham from my computer. Someone obviously owed someone else a big favor otherwise this movie would never have been green lit.
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1/10
One disastrous bank heist
TheLittleSongbird30 October 2018
One may ask why see '211' in the first place? Well, there is an appreciation for action films and bank heist films can be entertaining. Was also part of my "watching as many 2018 films as possible" quest (one of many quests) and although Nicolas Cage is one of the seemingly most hated actors he has done some good films and performances when the material is good and when he reigns in a little more than he usually does.

Having said that, was not expecting an awful lot from '211' having heard a lot of negative things about it, and from recent experience films with negative word of mouth and ratings have turned out to be that bad. Seeing it anyway out of curiosity and as a 2018 film completest, '211' sadly is another one of those films. One of Cage's worst ever films and perhaps his worst since 'The Wicker Man' (though that is perhaps debatable. Always try to look out for the good things in bad films, but '211' has none of them, all of it is bad and ugly even at its worst.

It is hard to know where to begin with the criticisms for '211'. An obvious starting point would be the acting. Most of it is more wooden than marionettes with a complete lack of personality or engagement, going through the motions is being generous. And then on the other end of the scale there is Cage in a performance that is hammier than one finds in a gammon roast dinner, not as bad as his infamously terrible performance in 'The Wicker Man' but goodness isn't it close.

They did have to work from a dire script, with a complete lack of natural flow, more cheese than the largest cheeseburger and filled to the brim with unintentional hilarity. As well as caricatured archetypes passing for characters that have no realism to them whatsoever, basically a clichéd battle of personality-deprived good characters and hammy and flat villains.

'211' is yet another film that has its characters being bland or obnoxious with frustrating and illogical character behaviours and vague motivations. The stupidity of the villains is unreal. Not excusing the bad acting in case one is wondering, there are many examples of actors and actresses who at least try, and a good deal of them succeed, to make the most with what they're given, unless the role is so horrendously written that even the best of them would make a hash out of it and there have been many examples of that too.

Even the production values are not good, it constantly looks like it was made in a rush and looks cheaper than some films with lower budgets. It's also intrusively scored and dully directed, but it's the story that is the biggest flaw. No tension, no suspense, no excitement and no sense of fun.

Story-wise, everything is so over-familiar, both simplistic and confused and so erratic in pace, with non-stop implausibility and has goofs so numerous and so glaring it insults the intelligence and muddles the film. The action is chaotically edited, clumsily choreographed and is just so bland.

Concluding, a disaster and this is a genuine review from someone who did see it with no prejudicial feelings against it. 1/10 Bethany Cox
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1/10
Terrible and Cheesey.. Stay away!
jwheeler-1400923 June 2018
So so so many thing wrong with this movie. From the first scene "transferring money," there is so much cheesiness, I seriously asked myself, "Who the hell picked these actors?" The actors are completely terrible, please don't ever cast them again, except Cage. the script is corny, and the lines made me face-palm.

There are also so many things wrong factually with the movie. So many missteps by production, like details they failed to overlook completely, to make scenes seems obviously fake. Sure there's plenty of action, but when someone is on a laptop, doing a money transfer, they're not going to be wrapping on the keys like they're typing up their final thesis for a masters degree. And when a computer process bar is finished, it should vanish, not restart, and if it restarts, and the actors says the transfer is complete, you shouldn't show the screen at the same moment... Going to a gun store to inquire about hard to come by weapons that a rogue spec ops team might be acquiring, and asking about AR-15's, is kind of wrong. AR-15's are civilian rifles, not special ops guns only para-military would illegally acquire to rob a bank. This made me laugh..

My next point takes me back to the actors, if you're going to portray highly trained rogue special forces, at least do some training for your actors, and make sure they get it right. Like when they are loading up before the bank robbery, and they're grabbing all their guns, you wouldn't pick up your pistol, rack the slide, then load the magazine and rack it again and holster it. Same with the rifles. Guy picks up his rifle, racks the charging handle like 5 times before putting his 100 round double drum magazine in it. Just doesn't happen that way... It has to be believable.

I honestly feel like I wasted 60 minutes of my time watching this, and I say 60 minutes because that's when I just turned it off. When the "video message" got recorded, that was the last straw of the cheesy horrible acting I could take. Couldn't even make it through the entire film.

Whoever directed this, needs to never direct another movie again. And Nicolas Cage, you should know better, you're better than this...
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1/10
WTF
leaniek16 July 2018
In this movie (which I know is fictional) cops seem so incompetent/ can't shoot!!! It was so unrealistic I was actually hurting an stoped watching! NO NO NO..If the movie is lacking in substance don't just fill it with mindless shoothing (where every one misses)....just don't make it! And a 1 star is to much..
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6/10
Surprisingly Good
nowego8 June 2018
At the time of writing this review, after actually watching this movie, the rating was 4.4 with 21% giving this a 1/10. Nicolas Cage really does have some haters, and I bet in this case many of them didn't even watch this movie before voting 1.

This is definitely not a 1/10 movie, my rating of 6/10 is in my opinion more accurate and I would have rated it higher except for a few issues I had with some of the acting and a few incidents that were a bit over the top.

I am not a huge Nicolas Cage fan, but I definitely don't think he is a bad actor, some of his movies are not the best and while this one is not one of his best, it is definitely not his worst and worth more than 4.4/10.

Basically a bank robbery gone wrong movie, with a bit of background drama thrown in. Some good action scenes and some pretty stupid actions on behalf of some of the characters, but overall an OK movie.

If you like shoot em ups, this one is for you. If you just don't like Nicolas Cage movies, just because, then this is not for you.

Not a movie I would see over and over, but OK for 80 minutes of entertainment.
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3/10
OMG, what did I just watch? Not worth it
SindarS17 July 2018
Warning: Spoilers
The first 30 minutes were somewhat decent by building up the plot and developing the story, but it completely fell apart after that.

First of all, you can see the plot twist coming a mile away so all you can do is sit and wait for it to play out. In one word - terrible!

I understand that it's supposed to be an action movie so can't expect some deep storyline here, but even the action scenes can't save it because of the awful acting.

Nicolas Cage does a half-decent job for most of the movie, but it's completely sunk by the rest of the cast.

I suppose the terrible writing didn't help either, since it's a goof-fiesta once the robbers get in the bank. Just to name a few: SPOILER:
  • the ride-along kid is completely cool when the cop car is being gunned down by an automatic gunfire next to the bank,
  • cops just shoot at the bank when there are hostages inside with no regard to their lives; also they can't hit a side of the barn if their lives depended on it, one cop even tries to hit something with a shotgun while there's the whole parking lot between him and the bank,
  • when evacuating the shot officer, the cops don't pay any attention to the safety of the ride-along kid and just run away, also they decide that running through the middle of the street where they are the most exposed to gunfire, is a "good idea",
  • cop's wife just runs into ER room during an operation and exposes her husband to possible wound infections,
  • the role of the Interpol lady in nonsensical throughout the whole movie, she acts like she knows everything, I guess because she has read the script, so she's there at the end to finish off the main bad guy...
I was considering giving this movie 4/10, but the stupidity that took place during the last 10 minutes knocked it down to 3... To conclude, it's not worth your time and I'd recommend watching another action movie.
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Awful!
LordCommandar9 June 2018
This was just awful. Bad acting, bad script, bad director. I remember when Cage was box office gold. Gone but not forgotten. He should probably set his career on maybe a TV series, because his film days are gone. This was a real stink fest.
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8/10
Did any of the 1/10's even see this film?
Top_Dawg_Critic3 September 2018
Warning: Spoilers
For a B grade film this was actually a decent production. What failed it was the terrible writing by first time amateur writer John Rebus. The story was a complete mess with plot issues everywhere. Had the beginning act been omitted or at least cut down to 5 mins or so, and the ending written better (and longer, instead of resolving ridiculously in 5 minutes) instead of these top trained military specialists walking out and getting killed off like amateurs, I would have rated this higher. The directing (camera work) was OK, but you can tell director/writer York Alec Shackleton did a lousy job directing his cast. The score also sounded very amateurish and too obvious and out of place throughout the film. Nicholas Cage was actually decent in his role, as was the rest of the B & C list cast. Interpol Agent Sapir Azulay was quite easy on the eyes as well. No way this film is deserving of such a low score, and I'm sure it's all the Nicolas Cage haters reviewing without even seeing the film. This was a great lazy Sunday popcorn flick. It's a 7.5/10 rounded up to an 8 for all those undeserving 1/10's. I would have given this film a higher score, had the writing not been such a mess.
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6/10
Good enough
unitedcapt7 January 2022
This movie could have been better but, unlike many these days, I watched it to the end. Some poor dialogue and maybe acting, but good storyline and suspense. At least they weren't mumbling and whispering so much like many movies these days where nobody knows what was said. However, it was odd how the police shots kept missing while the baddies didn't. But nice to see how our society was once free of masks. Except for those baddies....good old days.
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1/10
I hate that this "thing" made me write my first review
austrodutch11 January 2021
Oh my god where to start... like a few police people are under fire with a teenager and all 5 police people run ahead and not ONE grabs the kid to run. They are just like " yeahh see ya!" And then in the hospital when she runs up to the husband , just about pushed the doctors OUT OF THE WAY... when they try to save het husbands life. What!??! I mean , not even the kid doing a movie internship that day on set said:" hey I think we might be a bit unrealistic here" and did you see that guy who's leg was BLOWN OFF and the doctor in the hospital just sort of tabs it with a cloth like " there there , that will do"
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1/10
Simply Dreadful Amateurish Work
arfdawg-125 June 2018
Bank heist movie in the vein of "End of Watch" meets "Black Hawk Down".

REALLY?

No. It's garbage. Poorly written and poorly directed. Cage is clearly in need oc cash so e's making these 5 day shoot movies now. He looks old . The acting of the secondary characters is dreadful. The plot makes no sense. The entire movie is a waste of time
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3/10
bad
robertburke-8578410 June 2018
Good action scenes, but terrible acting, awful script, cliched characters and predictable deaths.
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2/10
Pretty Bad
cbodhinath10 June 2018
Don't waste your time. One of the baddest action movies of all time. Awful story, bad acting. Nicholas Cage is just a passenger of this movie. A real insult to the Spec Ops.
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1/10
Total Time Loss
atillaatesjob13 September 2020
Give my back 1 Hour 40 min, very very bad movie. I wasnt expecting a Cage movie could be worst like that.
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1/10
OMG1
gregoire6023 June 2018
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILERS Honestly love Nicolas Cage but they must have had something on him to make him sign up for this film. He is the only reason we put it on. The rest of the actors must have been turned away from coronation street and recruited from the rejects list. Some of the scenes to laugh at are the bank manager gets shot in the head with no bullet entry wound, the flesh pad used on one of the victims nearly fell out while being filmed, the acting is as wooden as most of the set construction. This film should be used to show people how not to make a film.
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6/10
Decent action movie - nothing to do with real event
dave-971069 June 2018
This entertained me. Some of the acting was a bit hammy in parts. Cage and Dwayne Cameron are fine. Some of the others are weak though.

It's supposed to be based on a real event, the North Hollywood shootout in 1997. There's nothing similar between that event and this movie. So forget it. Sit back and enjoy a basic action movie
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5/10
Please do not let Shackleton make another movie.
Beaumont1210 June 2018
This movie is a 1 raised to a 5 by Nicolas Cage. The writing and directing are a joke. The story is basic and okay, it is the actual lines that are written that are embarrassing, I would swear a 14 year old with zero life experience wrote it. Unfortunately, Shackleton had just enough family money and influence to make this. It is saved a little by the fact that Cage can do a lot without any directing. The other participants, can't call them actors, really needed some direction and just didn't get it. So I beg you, York (yes, that is his name, you know, like the peppermint pattie) I beg you take all that family money and "hard earned snowboarding money" and donate it to a charity, you are just not talented enough to use it properly.
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8/10
Why so many Nic Cage haters ?
petersstravel19 June 2018
I normally don´t write reviews but this time i´ll do it. I agree that Nic Cage has made a lot of awful movies lately but this one is not bad att all. I think that most people who hates Cage just put one star and that´s it. I recommend you to see it if you´re just want to see action and nothing else. It´s far away from the best movie but definetely a step in the right direction for Cage and the actors were good as well
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6/10
A good one time watch
groopz10 June 2018
I did not understand why the rating is 4.2. I won't say this is a great movie but I found it entertaining, and time well spent. I expected a better and more thrilling end though. The escape plan of the bank robbers did not look like a plan. The storyline is also more or less predictable. But still I liked it for the way it was presented. I liked the characters too. I recommend watching the movie.
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1/10
Horrible
Astaroth2221 October 2019
Remember watching a movie that was so bad it was funny? Well, this ain't one of them. It's much worse than that.
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1/10
Terrible!!!!
amgee-895518 January 2019
This film was so bad. The acting & Plot was so stupid & boring. Most of the characters are stupid as hell. Even Cage can't save this pile of rubbish. It was just another easy pay day for Cage. Don't watch 211
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