Dead Heist

Dead Heist starts in Miami as ex-marine Ackson (D.J. Naylor) becomes fed up with his job as a bodyguard for big time gangster Hustle (E-40) & wants out, meanwhile four of Hustle's minor drug dealers named Ski (Brandon Xavier), Trey (Michael Braxton), Bone (Chris Bailey) & Malcolm (Dominic L. Santana) also want to better themselves. Malcolm speaks to his uncle (Charlie Lucas) about robbing a bank & before you know it the four friends have a plan to make their fortunes. However they need guns & go to Hustle to ask for help, he agrees but only if he has a cut of the loot & if Ackson goes along to watch out for his interests & make sure the job isn't messed up. Reluctantly the five drive to the small town of Maysville where the well stocked bank sits, even though Ackson wants to plan the job properly the other four decide to go in all guns blazing & after the alarm is tripped they become trapped inside the bank with the local police outside, but that is the least of their problems as when night falls cannibalistic zombies flood the town killing & eating anyone they catch...

Directed by Bo Webb this horror comedy crime caper mixture reminds of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) in the structure of the script where the opening is purely a crime caper as a robbery goes wrong before taking a very different direction & turning into a horror film as the zombies attack our trapped protagonist's. To be fair to Dead Heist after I realised it was an 'urban' film & maybe an attempt at a modern Blaxploitation flick I shuddered at how bad I expected it to be but I actually thought it was quite good, Dead Heist is no masterpiece by any means but for what it is I found it fairly entertaining & at just over 70 minutes long at least it's short enough not to outstay it's welcome or become annoying. The obvious slant towards black culture & reference & hip-hop jive talking profanity laden dialogue is apparent & while I must admit to not understanding everything that was being said (I speak the Queen's English...) I did find some of it amusing but it's not all good news. Far from it. There's nothing new here, the lack of any big set-pieces or significant gore doesn't help & I suspect much of the film was dictated by the low budget which means the most unsecure bank ever, it's touching to see all the zombies suddenly stop attack Ackson at the end while he comforts his mate who has been bitten & we never get to see any of the town or it's people. Then there are the zombies which are never really explained beyond they escaped from a Government laboratory (yes, that old cliché again...) after a failed experiment or why they can only be killed by being shot through the heart. Overall I thought Dead Heist was quite punchy & quite amusing at times with a likable bunch of character's but it's low budget origins hinder it & it can't quite decide what it wants to be & as a result is a bit of everything.

Dead Heist also looks quite good considering it's low budget origins, there's no shaky hand-held camcorder crap or machine gun editing which I hate so much if it's overused & it looks a step-up from the average television film. There's not a lot of gore here, there's some blood splatter & a few bit wounds but nothing else of note. There's a little nudity & a brief lesbian scene. There does seem to be some blatant product placement here as well with virtually all the character's at the start wearing Averix shirts.

The IMDb says that Dead Heist had a budget of about $250,000 which sounds about right, filmed in Wilmington in North Carolina. The acting varies, most of it enthusiastic with the bland D.J. Naylor the worst of the leads. Rappers E-40, Bone Crusher & Big Daddy Kane feature although thankfully their music doesn't.

Dead Heist wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be, it wasn't great but it has it's amusing moments & the mixture of genres is a little random but gives it a bit of variety. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either, a commendable effort.