Review: A notorious day in L.A. history becomes the backdrop of a so-so heist thriller in ‘1992’

With the title “1992” and an image of Watts’ own Tyrese Gibson on the poster, one could safely assume that the 1992 Los Angeles riots that erupted in the wake of the Rodney King verdict would be central to this B-movie thriller by director Ariel Vromen. Instead, the riots feel incidental to the story.

Indeed, the film is set on April 29, 1992, a date immortalized in infamy (and in song, by the SoCal band Sublime), but the protests that grew into an uprising are merely background action for a heist movie that pits a crew of professional thieves against a former gang member. Any insights about the events of that specific day in L.A. history won’t be found here.

Gibson plays Mercer Bey, known as “OG Merc” to his old compatriots in the ’hood. He’s fresh out of prison and trying to go straight with a factory job manufacturing catalytic converters at Pluton Metals. He’s also attempting to be a strong and steady father to his teen son, Antoine (Christopher Ammanuel).

Scott Eastwood co-stars as Riggin, who’s assembling one last heist (it’s always the last one, isn’t it?). He convinces his younger brother Dennis (Dylan Arnold) and friend Copeland (Clé Bennett) to link up for a daring robbery of the platinum vault at Pluton, and then brings his dad, Lowell (Ray Liotta), in on the plan. On the day of the civic unrest, when “no one’s minding the shop,” they spring into action, knowing the LAPD’s attention will be elsewhere.

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A series of unfortunate events and dubious decisions leads the entire ensemble to the factory; a series of rash and violent choices leads to tragedy, father against father, a son for a son. It would be positively Shakespearean if it were in the least bit compelling. The problem is that the premise of the script, by Vromen and Sascha Penn, just feels like a high-concept Frankenstein job, pasting together two ideas (“‘Heat,’ but during the L.A. riots”) without giving much thought to the deeper themes and ideas at play.

A grizzled Gibson is always a compelling screen presence; the late, great Liotta is appropriately terrifying too. But the rest of the story has muddled motivations and stakes. Liotta’s Lowell is hesitant to do the job but has a bewilderingly rapid change of heart. He brings along a Waingro-style wild card who kicks off the bloodshed, and things spiral from there, as Mercer and Antoine, who have interrupted the heist, fight for their lives.

It ends up being the better choice for Vromen to swerve away from the riots in the latter half of the film. What he presents in the first half is cringeworthy: a chintzy and cheesy playacting of the chaos. It feels forced and extremely retrograde, politically. When Antoine expresses frustration that his father has yanked him away from the streets, Mercer scolds his son that rioting is what is expected of them. The perspective feels distressingly old-fashioned in today’s context of a post-Black Lives Matter America.

Even the look of “1992” feels faded from age and has a shallow focus. Every exterior shot of Los Angeles has a desaturated and yellowed color correction. The look of the film at night and in the factory is much more sophisticated, with the specific use of light and dark in the closed facility coming into play. But the geography and some of the coincidences are as baffling as the messaging. The 96-minute runtime feels cyclical and endless.

Despite associating with the riots, this film doesn’t want to engage with any of the topics at hand. Vromen and Penn would have been better off writing a straightforward father-son heist flick without trying (and failing) to pull off this high-concept maneuver.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.