Parents' Guide to Cash Out

This low-key bank heist movie has a few appealing qualities, but they're unfortunately outweighed by many more unappealing qualities, such as confusion, bewilderment, and boredom. Travolta proves that he's still a charismatic performer in Cash Out, adding several small touches to Mason that make the character feel rounded out, even if he's underwritten. There's some clever, swoopy camerawork that provides punch to a few scenes. And, during the bank heist, most of the characters seem aware of all the various clichés of the genre and do their best to work around them. (The bank manager explains that he's been through three or four other robberies.)

Unfortunately, there are also the old chestnuts, like the convenient "hacker" character, Link, who can solve almost any problem by clacking on her keyboard and speaking into a com link. Another character manages to break through several brick walls with a tiny hammer and a bullet wound in his shoulder. And Shawn is a little too on-the-nose as the "screw-up" character, at one point setting his gun down and letting his attention drift from the hostage he's guarding. But the biggest problem is the romantic relationship between Mason and Davis' Amelia; it's difficult to describe without giving away one of the movie's major plot twists, but their dynamic never makes any sense, and they don't have much chemistry. Cash Out certainly had good intentions, and it's not a total failure, but it also doesn't quite fit the bill.