A professionally executed heist movie that still misses the mark, The Vault is smoothly entertaining but curiously low on suspense. The goal — break into the Bank of Spain’s impregnable basement vault — is intriguing, the plan just this side of preposterous, and the characters’ motives generally admirable. A good cast, superior production values, appealing genre: what could go wrong?
Director Jaume Balagueró hits all the expected beats with aplomb, aided by Daniel Aranyó’s plush cinematography. The visuals pull viewers along, gliding through the kind of splendidly gigantic sets that exist only in the genre. Marble staircases, leaded glass ceilings, towering warehouses, air conditioning ducts that open into enormous chambers: it’s Mission: Impossible and Ocean’s Eleven and Fast and Furious and The Italian Job, only with a flavor of Madrid. Don’t forget massive banks of surveillance monitors, nerds who can overcome any computer firewalls, pickpockets who can crack any safe, and in this instance scuba divers who can work for minutes without oxygen.
Since you’ve seen something very much like this before, it’s up to the characters to hold viewers’ attention. The Vault starts with Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham), a driven entrepreneur determined to retrieve a fortune he believes was stolen by the Spanish government. Then there’s James (Sam Riley), a former Special Forces something-or-other who has vague ties with this and that. He’s just that underwritten, and with Riley playing him as an enigma, he is basically a blank.
Top-billed Freddie Highmore is Thom, a genius college student entertaining job offers from Big Oil firms mad for his problem-solving skills. He’s lured by pickpocket Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) into a high-stakes crime because, well, maybe he’s rebelling against his father, maybe he’s an adrenaline junkie, maybe it’s in his contract. Both performers do surprisingly well with their stereotypes. Highmore winks just enough to let viewers know he’s in on the joke, but is stalwart when called upon to leap over chasms or jump out of windows. Bergès-Frisbey uses her amazingly expressive face to deflate some of the massive amounts of testosterone on display.
On the villainous side are the good guys: bank security head Gustavo (José Coronado) and his minions. Like Andy Garcia or Al Pacino in the Oceans franchise, Gustavo’s job is to discover schemes after the fact, then stew angrily when the orders he barks out don’t work. Sadly, his role has no bite.
The Vault opens with an eerie underwater shot of a ship bursting into flame. Its title credits run over a montage of security obstacles Walter’s team must overcome to break into the bank. Drones, helicopters, and steadicams give the editing an intoxicating forward momentum. The locations and crowds are extravagant, the pacing hums along comfortably. On many levels The Vault is extremely entertaining.
If only the script worked. The plot to The Vault is endless near misses, followed by anxious regrouping back at headquarters. Team members are almost caught in stairways, elevators, meetings, rooftops. Ladders almost collapse, tape loops almost run out, magnetometers almost fail. Walter is forever counting down seconds to deadlines that are always met.
Viewers will realize early on that almost nothing is at stake in the storyline. What’s worse, the script doesn’t allow for car chases, fistfights, explosions, etc., so action — apart from nervous stares and baited breaths — is essentially nonexistent. So while The Vault is always pleasant to watch, it doesn’t quite reach the level of essential viewing.
The Vault is available in select theaters, on digital and On Demand March 26, 2021.
