Transit (2012)

What a waste of my time!!!

not horrible nor great

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Blistering performances.

After a successful bank heist, four criminals are trapped in a rest stop. Surrounded by road blocks, all they can do is stash the loot, and what better place than on top of a family mini-van, on it's way to a camping trip. With the police behind them, the race is on to get their money, before the family discovers what's on top of their car. Jim Caviezel stars, and while he will always be remembered for his role in The Passion, he is actually a pretty successful actor. He's terrific in his hit TV show, Person of Interest, and has done a ton of independent films like this one. As the father, trying to escape a dark past, Caviezel is amazing as the simple father, turned action star, once his family is threatened. Also of note is his older son, played by Sterling Knight. Knight is a blond haired, blue eyed, Disney star known best for his role in 17 Again. To see this tween idol playing a angst filled teen, smoking pot, dropping F bombs, and shooting shot guns, really did give me quite a good laugh. Transit is your typical action chase film, with two exceptions, one, a very interesting back story, and two a top star, who seems to enjoy staying below the grid in Hollywood. It's not much different from all the other Action films you've seen, but it has it's moments, and it was definitely fun to watch.

Good premise, decent acting. Maybe if you're smoking dope (a lot of dope) this movie would make some sense. At least the film was consistent - every one of the characters' choices made no sense whatever. It's like one of those horror films where all the victims set themselves up to be murdered. I wouldn't recommend this film to a dog. My dog watched for 15 minutes and fell asleep. From the attempt to run the family off the road, to the husband taking off into the swamp for NO apparent reason. Lots of nonsensical automatic weapons. The plant of an idea with the wedding band, gave me a slight hope of foreshadowing but alas, the husband acted more like it was a paper cut. I don't blame the actors, but the direction and the writing. Somebody should have been looking over their shoulders saying "no, no that does not make sense". Oh yes, was the van overheating or not?

A bunch of thugs orchestrate an armored car robbery, killing the guards in the process. The next morning on the run with the money, they find out through their police scanner that there's a roadblock ahead so they decide to park at a rest stop. When an SUV packed with luggage on the roof parks nearby they get an idea- exchange their package with a piece of luggage from the SUV, follow the owner and later pick up the money. The plan works well, the SUV goes through the roadblock and so do the bad guys despite misgivings by the police.But when it comes to getting the money back, the bad guys get impatient and lose it. They try to drive the SUV off the road at a speed trap. The driver of the SUV is caught and because he's on parole, he's jailed. His family rents two rooms in a motel. The bad guys break into one of them but it's the room that doesn't have the money. The police arrive and the bad guys leave. Once again they have to catch up with the family later to get the money. When the wife by accident discovers the money, she blames the husband who was previously jailed for white collar crime. She leaves him with the money in the middle of the road and drives with the two sons away. He hides the money and has to figure out how to get his family back with whom the bad guys have caught up.Transit is one of the better movies of the genre. It has plenty of good action and violence but it's also intelligent as the father and his nemesis figure out ways to outsmart each other. The cast is excellent: Caviezel, Röhm, Frain shine in their roles. The bad guy is bad and you can't wait for him to face justice while Caviezel is immensely likable. This is a B movie like they used to make them decades ago- a good cast, good story, well-made-- just barely below an A level movie. I enjoyed that almost the entire movie takes place outdoors in Louisiana.

If you like Detroit Muscle, you'll probably like this movie. The director knows what guys like in a movie, (and it's a guy flick) and puts it on the screen in style. There's a couple of brutal fights, a bit of blood here and there, (no boobs though) and then there is the murdered out Chevelle. There are burnouts, mad driving in traffic, it gets sideways, it does high speed 180's. It sounds wicked and the driver likes to push it to it's limits. Makes ya want to look on craigslist and buy some old muscle car and show the kiddies what a real tire-smoking, gas guzzling machine is supposed to sound like. lol. The plot was thin but tolerable, the acting was decent, the car was great. Nuff said.