A solidly made mid-range entry into an overcrowded genre, Vault charts the role that two small time crooks played in pulling off one of the largest robberies in American history at the height of organized crime activity in 1975.
Running out of plot in its anti-climactic final act, while it isn't nearly as successful as Raymond De Felitta's work from start to finish, Tom DeNucci's Vault plays best like a thematically similar B-movie cousin of fellow fact-based effort Rob the Mob.
From a scene where Don Johnson asks to get "made" to another where charming stick-up artist Deuce (Theo Rossi) brings the woman he held up hours earlier home to mama on the first date, the overly familiar Vault closely adheres to other genre fare.
Temporarily managing to shake the feeling that the film, which was written by DeNucci and B. Dolan, fell off the back of a better gangster movie's truck, Vault builds up momentum as Deuce and his partner in crime Chucky (Clive Standen) get tapped by a bitter Johnson to rob the mob care of a bonded vault.
Turning his audience into willing co-conspirators, while Vault delights in getting the details of the heist right, like most criminal plans, it fails to account for variables or figure out what to do or how to keep the adrenaline going long after the job has been pulled off.
Trading Rhode Island for Nevada, Vault takes us out to the desert on the lam with an increasingly wound up and sometimes strung-out Deuce and his girlfriend Karyn (Samira Wiley). And as Deuce calls his contacts back east for updates, his sense of frustration is magnified as DeNucci's film drifts, leaving unanswered questions hanging in the air.
Weaving things together with a conclusion that's as jam-packed with information as the film's opening sequence, despite its haphazard narrative approach, Vault is awfully entertaining to watch.
With Chazz Palminteri doing an easy layup as Johnson's mafia rival, the film is undeniably heightened by Rossi's charismatic turn. As playful as he is grounded, though he easily dominates Vault, watching Rossi you wonder how many more mobs he'll have to rob before an A-list director taps him and he gets made.
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