What makes Hagins a singular endowment is not just the freshness of her position, but its heart-whole earnestness. She is entirely uninterested in utilizing the sort of edgy tropes designed to boost the hipness factor for adolescent movies, and that is partially because there international relations and security network ’ t a mean-spirited bone in her body. A glimpse at the premise for her fifth feature, “ Coin Heist ” ( available now on Netflix ) would suggest that it were a mere rework of “ The Breakfast Club. ” Elisa Ludwig ’ s book, upon which the film was based, evening had an ad labeling its four adolescent protagonists as The Perfect Student, The Slacker, etc. One of the finest achievements of Hagins ’ adaptation is that none of her main characters can be defined by a reductive pronounce. They are aweary of the stereotypes that befall kids like them in most high school movies, identical few of which seem to understand the insecurity that fuels indeed much adolescent behavior. Rather than deliver snappish one-liners with the verbal dexterity of situation comedy veterans, these kids frequently talk in a flat affect while fumbling for the correct words. This approach could threaten to become bland in the hands of a less skilled film maker, but Hagins—now doubly the old age she was when she made her debut—keeps her consultation engaged by making each scene ring true. It ’ mho amusing to just observe the boredom exuded by a course of teens from a Philadelphia homework school when they are forced to take a field trip to the U.S. Mint ( “ Do they make credit cards here ? ” one kid asks ). Excitement ultimately pervades the boredom when the principal is taken away by police, arrested on charges of embezzling $ 10 million from the school ’ randomness endowment. This sudden braid jolts the sleepy demeanor of the principal ’ second son, Jason, played by Alex Saxon as a soft-spoken loner not at all please with his Spicoli-esque repute. He earns the empathy of Alice ( Alexis G. Zall ), an expert hacker who hatches a design to steal from the U.S. Mint in order to save the school. Jason ’ randomness x, Dakota ( Sasha Pieterse of “ Pretty Little Liars ” fame ), wouldn ’ metric ton normally associate herself with illegal schemes, but nowadays that the school ’ second debt has resulted in the cancellation of all extracurricular activities
and the relegation of the Winter Formal to the cafeteria, she eagerly joins the couple in planning the burglarize. Rounding out the quartet is Benny ( Jay Walker ), who once applied his skill at manufacturing IDs to help illegal immigrants. Though the elaborate undertake would make tied the “ Ocean ‘s Eleven “ crew balk at its trouble, Hagins maintains a suspension of our incredulity for much of the film ’ randomness running prison term, while building palpable thrills in some cliff-hanging set-pieces, particularly during the second gear one-half.
The movie ’ randomness credibility is strengthened, first and first, by the terrific young actors, two of whom are intelligibly poised for stardom army for the liberation of rwanda beyond the kingdom of on-line fame. Viewers who know Walker from the rackety sketch comedy in his Vine video recording will be stunned by the constraint and textured nuance of his work here. When Benny learns that his promise scholarship has been discontinued due to lack of funds, the look of disenchantment on Walker ’ mho boldness is precisely heartbreaking. It is an excellent operation, as is the matchless delivered by Zall, embodying the perfume of what has become the key signature, semi-autobiographical Hagins heroine : a sensible, sweetly nerdy person with a unlimited reservoir of resourcefulness. It ’ mho no surprise that Zall is effortlessly natural in front of the camera, considering that she achieved popularity with her charming YouTube series devoted to demystifying the foreignness of everyday biography, from eldritch foods to crowded film sets. Yet whereas her ebullient Internet character is evocative of Ellen Page ’ second Juno, Zall ’ s depiction of Alice is more evocative of Jena Malone in its understate vulnerability.
