Lying and Stealing (2019)

A mostly satisfying entry in the art heist genre.

The banter waxes and wanes a tad more than I’d like. And yes, Lying and Stealing, being a genre picture, is the 14,764th “one last job” movie.

Yet even given its budgetary limits and second-tier cast, Lying and Stealing manages to be a retro escapist pleasure — one whose cleverness might actually have been muffled by flashier surface assets.

The movie has moments, but clichés abound and it runs out of energy and steam early. In a memorably bad summer, count it as another dull indie-prod on its way to home video.

Lying and Stealing might have been more effective if its two leads had more charisma, but James is mostly bland and Ratajkowski never quite convinces as a woman of mystery. This is the sort of lighthearted exercise that requires genuine star power to overcome its triviality, and the lack of it here seriously diminishes its impact.