HEIST SCHOOL (2006) *

I can honestly say I haven’t seen very many Turkish movies.  That’s not a slight against the country or their cinematic output.  It’s just that their films aren’t the sort of things that pop on my radar.  Unless they have Captain America and El Santo teaming up to fight an evil Spider-Man (as was the case with the Turkish classic, 3 Giant Men), I don’t usually intentionally seek out Turkish cinematic delights.

Heist School doesn’t sound like a movie I would watch, even if it was in English.  It’s basically the Turkish version of The Perfect Score.  Five teenagers panic when they learn the government are rolling back college scholarships.  They then set out to steal the answers to a big college entrance exam in order to get accepted to a fancy college.  

Granted, it’s not the worst idea for a movie.  It’s just that it’s extremely slow moving (the long scenes of the kids sitting in class seemingly play out in real time), there’s way too many characters, and the heist scenes lack anything approximating suspense.  The faux film breaks, and random use of filters quickly get annoying too.

Great directors would struggle to keep us engaged for ninety minutes of this.  Unfortunately, this one clocks in at a whopping two hours.  The editor could’ve cut whole chunks out of the picture and no one would’ve noticed.  It also doesn’t help that none of the young performers are particularly likeable or memorable either. 

The only reason I watched Heist School was because Jean-Claude Van Damme was in it.  Unfortunately, you have to wait till the last twenty minutes before he shows up.  He makes a big superstar entrance deboarding a private plane, which makes me think the production company just filmed him arriving at the airport.  Basically, his character, a supposed master criminal who—get this—looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme (that’s the level of humor we’re dealing with here) is only there to help the kids plan their heist and give them a pep talk.  Van Damme does give the movie a brief shot in the arm, but he’s given too little to do in too little time to make much of a difference.  (The lame part where he intimidates a bully is as close as the film comes to having an action scene.)

Awhile back when I was on Ty and Brett’s Comeuppance Podcast, we talked about our Top 5 Best and Worst Van Damme movies.  This would definitely go on my list of Top 5 Worst list.  I guess I could cut it a little slack because it’s not exactly a Van Damme vehicle as his role is little more than an extended cameo.  That said, his participation (however brief) is the sole reason anyone would want to watch it to begin with.  Whenever he isn’t on screen, Heist School flunks out.