Ray Liotta's excellent last film is here

There are moments in Ariel Vroman's historical heist thriller 1992 that speak volumes, but one that stands out comes from the late Ray Liotta. 1992 was the actor's final film, and his performance is top-notch and terrifying.

Liotta plays Lowell, a safecracker who plans to steal millions of dollars worth of precious metals from a factory on April 29, 1992, the day the Los Angeles uprising began. As the streets fill with righteous anger, windows shatter and fires blaze, this career criminal and violent father, literally on his way to committing a crime, looks out at black people raging against generations of injustice and declares — without noticing any irony — that their grievance “doesn't give them the right to do this. This is other people's property.”

Naming a heist movie 1992, for example, is a bold move, because it shows the world that you're not just making a thriller set in the aftermath of the disastrous Rodney King trial, but making a statement about the whole damn era. And while it would be an exaggeration to say 1992 fully lives up to that claim, no one can say these filmmakers didn't try. The heist is no accident; the way it plays out is a horror of white privilege. Meanwhile, our heroes initially don't prioritize, or even realize, the heist in progress—they're so busy navigating the chaos and evading looming police brutality that for a while we wonder if these two stories will ever intersect.

In less sophisticated thrillers, that might be annoying—imagine John McClane taking an hour to get to Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard—but Vroman's film uses an unconventional structure as a commentary on the genre itself and audience values. Mercer (Tyrese Gibson), an ex-convict trying to keep his teenage son Antoine (Christopher Ammanuel, Black Lightning) safe, is headed to the factory where he works because it's far away from the violence. Or at least it should be. Mercer can't even get to the action-packed “movie” part of the film because the harsh realities of April 29, 1992, cannot and should not be avoided. They are the real point of the film, even if there is a shootout and a chase at the end.

When Mercer and Antoine finally arrive at Pluton Metals, the thieves have already screwed everything up. Liotta's two sons, Riggin (Scott Eastwood) and Dennis (Dylan Arnold, “Oppenheimer”), hate and fear him, and the only black thief among them, Copeland (Clé Bennett, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”), is the one Liotta considers expendable. Their crime isn't exactly a microcosm of the social tensions unfolding outside the factory walls, but it is infected by the same abuses of power and the same despicable apathy toward black lives.

As an actor, Gibson is best known for his likable, superficial roles in the likable and superficial “Fast and Furious” and “Transformers.” “1992” is a welcome reminder that he's an excellent actor when he's given smart material. Mercer's stoicism hides a criminal past, that much becomes clear early on, but watching him choose to stand up for himself and his son, knowing he's fighting a losing battle, speaks to the lessons he's learned the hard way. Ammanuel plays Antoine as a teenager going through an emotional whirlwind even before the day's gruesome turn of events, and his anger at a world that expects him to be nice but will never be his is genuine and understandable. It's his inexperience and impulsiveness that could get him in trouble.

And there's Liotta, a small man doing a big job, taking what he wants and despising anyone who does the same. The actor brings a frightening pragmatism to Lowell, fuelled by self-preservation and unthinking prejudice. He'll do whatever it takes to make money, and usually that means hurting black people or scaring his youngest son, showing weakness because weakness is feminine. Lowell never makes a big speech about his superiority. His viciousness is terrifying and believably casual. If you asked him, he'd probably say he doesn't carry a single shred of bigotry in him, even after killing two black people just for inconveniencing him.

“1992” is intelligently written, intensely photographed and edited, sharply acted and unusually powerful. It has a low-budget feel, but director and co-writer Ariel Vroman – who shares the screenplay with Sascha Penn (“Creed II”) – uses everything at his disposal. It's as big as it needs to be, it's as effective as it probably can be. As a thriller, it gets your pulse racing; as a drama, it gets your heart pounding. It balances both genres skillfully, and that's where its strength lies. A clever combination of excitement and thoughtfulness, it's an excellent and unexpected film.