I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s been in a couple of decent projects such as Get Smart, and even appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager once. Aside from that, he pretty much seems to make the same kind of movie over and over, a la Jason Statham, which has lead to him starring in projects like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Snitch, Doom, and the last couple of Fast & Furious films. I guess when a guy like him finds a niche that works for the target audience, he doesn’t want to risk going outside of it all that often.
The trailer for his latest project, Empire State, recently dropped and there’s not much more to say about it other than that it looks like more of the same. The official synopsis reads as follows:
After failing to get into the police academy, Chris Potamitis (Liam Hemsworth), settles for a security guard job with the EMPIRE STATE Armored Truck Company. Chris makes the mistake of mentioning the company’s lax security to his best friend, Eddie (Michael Angarano), and is soon unwittingly drawn into an elaborate scheme to rob the abundant amounts of cash being stored there – resulting in the largest cash heist in U.S. History. As the stakes continue to rise, Chris and Eddie must outwit James Ransone (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), the veteran NYPD Detective that is hot on their trail, as well as the local crime bosses that want to know who pulled a job on their turf, or suffer the consequences.
As you can see from the plot synopsis, the film also stars Liam Hemsworth, who has starred in a couple of decent projects (Knowing, The Hunger Games), as well as Emma Roberts, who has mostly starred in a slew of bland, forgettable projects such as Valentine’s Day, Scream 4, and Celeste & Jesse Forever.
Apparently this one was not deemed to be very high quality either as the film will forgo a theatrical run to be released directly to Blu-Ray and DVD. It’s rather hard to blame them for this decision given that the film doesn’t really differentiate itself from the several other “inside job” films, but who knows, maybe this one will be silly enough to be entertaining. I’m not about to hold my breath though.
You can own Empire State when it hits shelves on September 3rd.
Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments!
(Source: The Film Stage)
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