How do you make a bank heist movie feel fresh? It’s a good question, one that a lot of filmmakers answer by going big, with explosions and gunfire, car chases and lots and lots of violence. But not Solid Rock Trust, a twist on the genre that never actually takes us to the bank. It’s a bold choice, one that seems impossible to make work, but that’s exactly what it does.
In a large converted garage, Maddie (Koko Marshall) is on the phone, talking one after the other with her team, members of a specialized collection of thieves robbing a bank. She’s calm and in control, pacing around the room in front of her computer monitors. She’s using different accents for each person, yet it appears that not all of them are in on the same path. When the robbery gets going, things begin to shift as those in the bank learn that it’s not the vault Maddie is after, though if they do as planned, there’s a lot more money in the take when it’s over. Like, a lot more money. However, it begins to break apart and when her team gets trapped, Maddie faces some tough choices as those on the inside go their own way.
Written by Rick Ives, who’s spent a career in editing, makes his directorial debut with a low-key but energetic little film that puts the whole story on Marshall’s shoulders. She’s basically the only person on screen, save for a hacked CCTV and a pair of distractors who show up briefly at the halfway point. The entire movie takes place in a single setting, the camera focused on Maddie as she stares at her computer and deals with conflict on the phone. Fact is, she’s just about on the phone from the first frame to the last, switching her voice and her story each time until it seems to unravel right before her … ears?
You’re probably thinking the same thing I did when I pressed play, believing there’s no way this could be sustainable, listening to a woman talk on the phone for ninety plus minutes. However, Ives keeps things ticking with plenty of good turns in the plot, having Maddie constantly play catch up as she deals with one problem after another, including shifting logistics as cops close in but also personal betrayal. That leaves Marshall to swing an emotional pendulum, which thankfully, she does with great effect, her expressive face and voice making it easy to get behind her.
Where things stumble is the filler, Ives padding some of this unnecessarily, including the aforementioned interruption from a real estate agent and a client who sort of stumble in on the movie with no purpose but to add some rather protracted tension. It doesn’t work. At all, especially when it’s revealed where the garage is. So too are some dialogue sequences that come up flat, though I’ll give that some latitude given how everything is over the phone.
Still, even with these quibbles, Solid Rock Trust works, and it does so because of Marshall’s convincing performance and Ives creative direction while housed completely in a single space. I like the idea behind this, a heist movie with no heist on screen, at least the way it’s traditionally played out. You might still think that there would be nothing exciting about that, but there are some smart bends in the road here that build up to a well-earned ending. It may lack the polish of a big studio title, but don’t let that stop you. Solid Rock Trust is an action movie without the action, doing what seems rare these days, getting and keeping our attention with just words.