In fact, the two ladies are sisters, backing up their brother, the head fireman/robber Michael ( Scott Haze), who needs some cash to get out of a really bad situation. There’s a lot of noise coming from outside from a fire down the street, and a trio of firemen enter the bank to make sure it’s secure as well-and then they’re revealed to be robbers, working in conjunction with Leah and Vee. A young woman named Leah ( Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s daughter) is applying for a job as a teller another woman named Vee ( Taryn Manning) is complaining about checks that shouldn’t have bounced a local cop (Clifton Collins, Jr.) is flirting with another teller named Susan (Q’orianka Kilcher). And then there’s the ending, which is so resolutely stupid that I suspect the few people who do see this in theaters this weekend will throw their remaining popcorn at the screen.Ĭo-written by Bush and Conal Byrne, “The Vault” is a (mostly) single-setting affair at what looks like a relatively ordinary bank on what seems like a relatively ordinary morning. Both the heist movie and the spooky flick are underdeveloped with the former lacking the intense dedication to geography that puts you in the middle of the scene and the latter resorting too often to jump scares and undefined rules of the game.
Yes, it’s “ Dog Day Afternoon” meets “ The Haunting.” And while that’s an undeniably fun idea, director Dan Bush (“The Signal”) doesn’t quite know how to pull off either half.
Sadly, “almost” is as good as I can get for “The Vault,” a film that merges the bank robbery flick with a haunted house movie.