Charles Dickens’ 1837 novel “Oliver Twist” is classic material: a boy escapes his workhouse to join a gang of pickpockets on the steamy, mysterious streets of Mudfog. Since its release, the novel has been staged numerous times, filmed as a movie starring John Davies in 1948 and adapted into a musical, “Oliver!” in 1968, among many adaptations. The only thing left to do to breathe new life into the classic tale: add parkour, apparently.
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In this particular adaptation, the novel has been given a modern ahem, twist, with the boy Oliver (Raff Law) leaping around London in ripped jeans, faded Vans and baggy sweaters. When he runs into a group of pickpockets, he fits right in and decides to move into their decked-out, frat-house-like sanctuary. Writer-director John Wrathall skips over the book’s orphanage chapters and moves straight towards Oliver’s time with Fagin (Michael Caine), the brains behind the operation.
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That’s the set-up, and parkour ensues as Oliver, and his mates prowl around London’s East End. He’s joined by Dodge (Rita Ora) and Batesy (Franz Drameh), two recruits who run small-time errands for Fagin, now plotting an elaborate heist to get back at a posh art dealer (David Walliams). For some reason, a violent, gender-flipped Sikes (Lena Headey) also joins the operation, causing more problems than you can count, including a love triangle between herself, Twist and Nancy (Sophie Simnet) who she hovers over like a hawk.
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Law, Ora and Headey are talented actors; these are roles they can do in their sleep, which is why it’s a bit disappointing that the film doesn’t push the performers, or the material, out of this bland, somewhat basic heist. Oliver Twist stealing a painting is a novel idea; the same goes for a Nancy who hacks safes. It’s just that we’ve seen this story a million times before, but without Dickensian characters, and with characters who have a lot more depth, personality and range, as written by screenwriters who actually know what they’re doing (see Soderbergh’s “Oceans 11” or Mann’s “Heat”). Don’t see “Twist.” Wrathall might as well be teaching a course on how not to make a movie.
The plot is trite and predictable. There are no twists or turns, or shocks. It’s just teenagers running, spinning, twirling and flipping around town while completely incompetent police officers chase them from museums to houses to apartments to back alleys. As for the parkour? Let’s just say GoPros were not the call. It’s ideal to have electric camerawork to go along with electric stunts, and GoPros can flip and twirl remarkably, but they’re jittery, not seamless. The Steadicam might have fared better, and though it can’t keep up with handheld, it can keep you invested.
The action on display better be mind-blowing to make suffering through the bad dialogue and jittery camerawork worth it, so the most egregious thing about “Twist” is just how erratic it is. Most of the action scenes are cut to pieces, with one set on a rooftop that is so erratic that you can’t even tell what’s going on. It’s like that episode of “The Office” where Michael and Dwight jump around screaming “parkour!” but don’t do anything cool. To call it undercooked is an understatement. [D-]