By Jay Betsill
“Marauders” is the story of a team of FBI agents trying to take down a group of lethal bank robbers in Cincinnati with a myriad of subplots thrown in that makes it appear that this 107 minute movie might have been better off as a 10-epiosde Netflix series.
The FBI agents are led by special agent Jonathan Montgomery (Christopher Meloni from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) who heads the joint robbery-homicide investigation in conjunction with the Cincinnati PD following four masked thieves robbing $3 million in cash from Hubert National Bank run by Jeffrey Hubert (Bruce Willis). Montgomery’s crew includes Agent Stockwell (Dave Bautista) and Special Agent Wells (Adrian Grenier – Vincent Chase from Entourage).
By tracking the serial numbers, the FBI discovers the highly coordinated group of thieves donated the money to a City Mission charity fund meaning that their motivations go well beyond cash.
There’s a second heist at a different Hubert bank location where the thieves steal cash and the contents of personal safety deposit boxes belonging to Hubert and an Ohio Senator and just as in the initial robbery, police discover a print matched to a dead Army Ranger named TJ Jackson.
By the time we get to the third robbery, there is a shootout as it takes place while Montgomery is in the building interviewing Hubert.
Throughout the movie, there is a turf war with Montgomery clashes with Detective Brian Mims (Johnathon Schaech from That Thing You Do) who in addition to being a corrupt officer is also dealing with his wife dying of cancer. Montgomery also has issues in his personal life as his wife was killed years before and subsequently he orders a glass of red wine at their favorite bar and just sits there without drinking it.
Meloni delivers a solid performance that brings back memories of his intense role of Stabler on SVU, while Willis gives the same performance he did in Extraction, Hard Kill, Acts of Violence and his other supporting roles of his latter career.
The screenplay by Michael Cody and Chris Sivertson is complicated enough that it would have benefited from being a series in that they could have explained all of the subplots that are essentially introduced and glossed over en route to a neatly wrapped up conclusion.
While filmed on a small budget of $15 million, “Marauders” has the big name cast and glossiness of a summer blockbuster and delivers exactly what you’d expect from the trailer.
“Marauders” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
MARAUDERS (Rated R)
Scale of 1-10 – 6
