Midas review – heist thriller almost has the touch
Midas probably needed one more coat of polish with the script to truly shine. It’s close, really close to successfully pulling off this dramatic heist with personal stakes.
Were it not for some early lasting struggles in the opening act, Midas could have worked very well despite its smaller budget.
It’s not terrible, but director/writer TJ Noel-Sullivan would have benefitted from another few sets of eyes on the script to question some plot holes. And possibly come up with some better resolutions.
The premise is decent, but the film gets bogged down by these early questionable choices.
Ricky Pryce (Laquan Copeland) is a food delivery driver trying to scrape whatever money he can to help care for his cancer-stricken mother, Mia (Jo Ann Cleghorne).
Noel-Sullivan negatively steers perception of Ricky early on as he steals some containers at a local restaurant. The execution is pretty sloppy as someone in the restaurant would have noticed. Noel-Sullivan also realizes he’d put himself in a corner as the cashier would have noticed Ricky walking out with a new bag of plastic containers and just cuts to him already in the car.
While it does show a certain measure of desperation, Noel-Sullivan would have been better served waiting to introduce the sick mom before showing Ricky as a thief.
Ricky’s best friends, Sunita (Preet Kaur, Road Wars) and Victor (Federico Parra) are faring better with their post-college careers considering they actually graduated. Ricky had to drop out to take care of Mia and his younger sister.
Victor wants to introduce Ricky to a classmate, Claire (Lucy Powers) and the two instantly hit it off. Claire introduces Ricky to her father, Gregory (Bob Gallagher). Convinced Ricky is a Harvard graduate, Gregory quickly offers him a job at his health insurance company.
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Here’s the first major issue with the script. Ricky offers up some easily verifiable lies and Gregory doesn’t think to do any sort of background check.
Otherwise, he’d know his company fired Mia. An easier solution would have been delaying Ricky and Gregory meeting until Claire and Ricky have dated for a few months. This gives Gregory more incentive to give this random dude with Claire a job beyond adding a diversity hire.
Another problem is these scenes for Copeland to lay into the charm heavily. Instead, he’s selling Ricky’s apprehension and uneasiness in lying. Ricky seems like the kind of character type that would snow others into going along with whatever he’s saying because it sounds so good. Copeland’s Ricky comes off way too suspicious to buy into the basic plot.
Assigned to work with Gregory’s nephew, Frank (a solid prickly Erik Bloomquist), Ricky learns his mother’s still in the system. A few keystrokes and that expensive cancer treatment could be handled on the company’s dime.
Recognizing he can’t do it on his own, Ricky recruits Sunita and Victor to help. Unlike the standard heist film, Sunita and Victor aren’t experts in various skills. They’re just capable enough to get the job done.
Kaur and Parra play off each other well and tend to help Copeland relax and settle into scenes easier. The three have good enough chemistry that it wouldn’t be hard to envision them doing small scale gig heists in a weekly TV series.
Ironically as Neal-Sullivan takes the story down some darker paths, Copeland’s performance noticeably improves.
That’s somewhat of an oddity as typically an actor finds the dramatic moments harder to properly convey the lighthearted relaxed scenes. Once Copeland finds his comfort level in showcasing his charisma, he’s going to be an actor worth following.
The score is ok albeit becoming repetitive by the final act.
Midas has some decent twists and a likable main cast. It’s a film easy to project getting “rebooted” with larger financing and a tighter script to become a superior effort.
For now, this is a worthwhile smaller scale film that might prove to be a pleasant surprise for viewers.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Millennial