Director: Renny Harlin

Writers: Robert Henny and Kurt Wimmer

Starring: Piece Brosnan, Rami Jaber, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Chung, Pirat ‘Mike’ Nitipaisalkul, Tim Roth, Nick Cannon, Qais Qandil, Samer al-Masry, Mansoor Al Feeli

Rating: ★★★

The Misfits has gone down as one of the worst films from 2021, with nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards and a general negative reaction from critics and audiences alike. The film is a heist film, that’s a little bit Fast and Furious. It’s nothing revolutionary but it’s entertaining in parts.

A group of Robin Hood style thieves, known as The Misfits, at least to their member Ringo (Nick Cannon), decide to steal a load of gold from a prison, which would be used to finance terrorism. To achieve this, they coerce Richard Pace (Pierce Brosnan) into joining their gang and help plan the heist.

The opening of this film is absolutely great. It starts with Ringo narrating, introducing the rest of the gang, while also showing that he’s unreliable as a narrator. He embellishes facts and tells you out straight that while he calls the gang The Misfits, the others don’t agree on the name. It’s a quirky and instantly engaging opening. It makes you feel like the whole film is going to be this eccentric and energetic adventure, but it’s quickly dropped. Once the introductions have happened, the narration is dropped, and it becomes a much more straight forward action film. It’s still entertaining and doesn’t drift into the realms of boring, but it’s not quite what the opening promised.

Pierce Brosnan, apart from some questionable accents (a running theme of this film, especially from Nick Cannon’s performance), is entertaining, showing that he would still be convincing as James Bond if they decided to make a nostalgia fuelled entry of the series (which wouldn’t be that out of place with the modern world where Michael Keaton is soon to be Batman again). This isn’t one of those films where a big name lends their name and face for the poster and doesn’t really appear in the film (look at anything Bruce Willis has made in the last few years), Brosnan is central to the plot and gets his fair share of screen time.

Despite the hopeful opening, none of the other characters really live up to their introductions. They’re all kind of bland, and none of them are really memorable beyond the first ten or so minutes. Compared to Fast and Furious, which The Misfits feels like it’s trying to imitate at points, there aren’t a group of characters that you can get invested in here.  Also co-starring is Tim Roth, who seems oddly happy at random points throughout.

Overall, it’s entertaining and passes the time, but it doesn’t do anything that great. Outside of the opening it’s largely forgettable and not something you’ll be recommending or re-watching.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this review, please subscribe to never miss a post: