‘Heist’: Good and bad sides to tale of casino theft

“Heist,” engrossing yet underdeveloped, brings to mind a great line from Lawrence Kasdan’s wonderful 1985 Western, “Silverado.”

At one point, “Silverado’s” villain (played by Brian Dennehy) says of his diffident, former partner in crime (Kevin Kline): “[He] doesn’t seem to care about anything, except he does. You just can never tell what it’s going to be.”

Nearly everyone in “Heist,” the story of a bungled theft and its aftermath, unexpectedly and narrowly cares about something, despite otherwise being profoundly violent and desperately selfish.

Take Robert De Niro’s murderous, monstrous casino owner, “the Pope,” whose failure to reconcile with an estranged daughter becomes a crack in his armor. Or Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Vaughan, who robs the Pope’s casino and commandeers a city bus at gunpoint, only to strain to keep his hostages alive. Or Vaughan’s merciless sidekick, Cox (“Spectre’s” Dave Bautista), whose soft spot is a childhood pal bleeding to death.

On it goes. Even a sturdy cop (Gina Carano), hot on the heels of the thieves, bends her principles when she realizes there’s more to antihero Vaughan than meets the eye.

“Heist” presents a bifurcated view of people under stress, when the worst and best in anyone is likely to show. The result is an interesting tension within and between characters, but a lack of greater nuance in “Heist” renders everyone emotionally monochromatic.

There’s an emptiness in the film — exacerbated by an improbable twist at the end — but that doesn’t mean “Heist” is unwatchable. Director Scott Mann does a bang-up job of orchestrating suspense and mayhem in chase scenes involving the bus, police cars, SWAT vehicles and a helicopter. Several stunts can leave you bruised just watching them.

Caught between genre potboiler and would-be human drama, “Heist” doesn’t have a mark to hit. But it leaves some good impressions.