A film about a robbery inside a movie theater; for a film critic and former movie theater employee, I was in heaven. A little over 124 minutes later, I found myself battling sleep as I wandered around in the midst of hell. Yes, Iria Gomez Concheiro's The Cinema Hold Up is simplistically put, terrible. I'm not sure if I can put into words just how unfortunate the whole experience was, but I will try my damnedest.
To start things off, the film is said to be about the heist of a local movie theater. In reality, the film is about the boring life of teenagers who happen to spend some ten minutes crafting a plan to rob a place where assets are extremely limited. The robbery itself took up only fifteen minutes of the film, and the so-called after affects and emotions result in nothing interesting for the viewer.
I can't completely blame the actors involved, the script is really the achilles heel when it comes to a film, and this one bore nothing worth remembering. Yet even with that said, the acting is not good. Every moment seems premeditated, every line rehearsed, and the chemistry between the group of 'friends' is absent from the onset.
The film got into Sundance; I have to give it some props. But in all honesty, I am still scratching my head for a reason why.
