Butler's Cinema Scene

James Franco

“THE VAULT” My rating: C

91 minutes | No MPAA rating

At the very least you’ve got to give the makers of “The Vault” props for daring genre blending.

Imagine “Dog Day Afternoon” mating with John Carpenter’s “The Fog.”

The first 45 or so minutes of Dan Bush’s film (he co-wrote it with Conal Byrne) is a fairly standard bank robbery flick.  A crew of thugs invade a downtown bank, take the employees and customers hostage, and prepare to loot the place.

There’s the usual assortment of big hulking tough guys.  But heading up the operation are a couple of women — sisters no less. Leah (Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s daughter) is more or less the cool brains of the outfit.  Sister Vee (Tamryn Manning) is a hot-tempered, fly-off-the-handle type (a role she perfected on “Orange is the New Black”).

There’s also their brother Michael (Scott Haze), on whose behalf they’re robbing the place.  Michael is deep in debt to some very bad guys, so the sisters view this as a rescue mission.

Among the hostages is Ed (James Franco), an assistant bank manager who sports a decades-out-of-style ‘stache and scuzzy sideburns. To save the hostages he lets the robbers know that most of the money is in an old vault down in the cellar.

Early on Leah poses as a potential bank employee and is told during her job interview that it’s hard to keep cashiers at this branch because people think it’s haunted.  Add to that our growing knowledge that 40 years ago this bank was the site of a robbery-gone-wrong and world-class massacre, and you can sense elements of the supernatural creeping in.

Sure enough, once the crooks are down in the basement drilling open an old bank vault weird stuff happens.  Electric lights flicker.

Turns out there’s more than just cash in the vault.

And there you have it.  The well-armed tough guys soon find themselves prey to a small army of shadowy figures who’ve spent decades locked up. Now they’re free to wreak havoc.

Yep, it’s pretty goofy. At least Bush and his players don’t let on that they know it’s goofy.

| Robert W. Butler