What! The Heist is director Matt Lai’s caper-comedy helmed by comedians from Singapore and Malaysia, Mark Lee and Jack Lim. The movie is a collaboration between the two countries for this coming Chinese New Year period, and among the popular ASEAN stars starring in the movie are Patricia Mok, Jaspers Lai, Choo Hao Ren, Gan Mei Yan, Yuan Teng, Henry Thia, Ahirine Ahirudin, and Grace Teo.
The comedy crime is about a criminal nicknamed Godfather (Lim) who breaks out of jail to complete a mission given to him by his boss, Big Boss (Thia). The mission involves a lottery heist whereby they swap out lotto balls to win the jackpot, a prize worth US$100 million.
After recruiting an unsuspecting actor (Lee) desperate for money to help his sick daughter, they begin to execute their grand plan.
As they work through things step-by-step, it soon comes to light that Godfather’s boss plans to kill everyone involved after the mission is completed. Godfather and his new team now have to plot to save their lives and keep the money for themselves.
The movie is very much a parody of the Netflix series Money Heist, but only superficially. For example, Godfather is clearly the stand-in for the Professor, and Ahirine plays the character named Bangkok.
Other than that, the plot of the storyline is original and written by Lai, who plays the foolish sidekick YaGood in the movie.
The movie is presented by ecoBrown and Chek Hup, with co-sponsors NewMe Live and OLOIYA, and distributed by GSC Movies. This movie is backed up by many sponsors, with promotion partners like Petron and AEON Mall.
In the movie, it’s obvious that the sponsors were involved, and some might even say it felt like a long advertisement.
Director Lai wasn’t subtle with the product placement either, almost excessively incorporating products into various parts of the movie.
Fortunately, the audience seemed able to overlook that component for the humour.
Although the humour in the movie isn’t my kind humour, I really enjoyed the funny chemistry among the cast during the press conference.
That said, I think it might be worth watching the movie with your family during Chinese New Year if they’re looking for some lighthearted movie.
Catch the movie in theatres which is set to be released before Chinese New Year on Jan 19 2023.
