Wonderfully offbeat film!

Redundant and unnecessary.

Nice effects though.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

The beautiful 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk is the best thing in this movie. The beginning has a few chuckles as Jamie Foxx's girlfriend, Nia Long, gets an education about 8 track players. Once the "Sip & Zip convenience store is taken over by some inept robbers, the movie begins a steady slide downhill. In other words, as the supposed hostage situation becomes more ridiculous, so does the film. None of the cast of misfit characters is developed, and the simplistic script is stretched beyond belief. It's almost like they said this is what we have, now what can we do with it? I absolutely will add "Held Up" to my DVD collection, but only because of the magnificent car. - MERK

There are a couple of these movies you catch on cable that manage to sneak some real wit and sympathy into a no-man's-land of stylistic boredom that doesn't even earn the name B-movie ( where this kind of movie is concerned, it's always 1986. ) There are rules to watching a movie like this. You never call them by their real name, because you can't remember their real name, but are to be referred to instead by embarrassed asides to your girlfriend that go entirely ignored while she flips through a Zagat guide, such as "I saw this piece of s--t with Burt Reynolds and Sinbad that was actually kind of funny." Also, you never watch them from beginning to end, but catch them in the middle. Failure to obey this law could result in a meteoric drop in self-esteem and feeling of productivity. That feeling like "the day's being wasted."The art of a car-wash movie consists of brushing against cliché then pulling back at the last moment. The trick isn't to get you to laugh, but to keep you smiling internally. It's all in the delivery. When Jamie Foxx first encounters a vaguely hostile Little League team and says "Children of the corn," it could very easily come off like a hokey black pop-culture reference to get the Magic Johnson Cineplex crowd roaring. But in this movie, he says it quietly, as if to himself, with a girlishly shocked tinge to his voice. The result is that you find yourself chuckling about the line a half-hour later or after the movie has ended, instead of while it's happening. Most of the jokes here work like that.And Jamie Foxx is so charming in this film. He looks "street" enough but acts the ninnyhammer as well as Woody Allen, and there's a refreshing lack of explanation about why he's such a nerd. Who else can play the badass, the geek, the samaritan, the tormented artist, the preening genius, and every shade in between, and never coast on the support and shared background of a presumed black audience? There is no pandering in Foxx's performances, no trace of the veiled minstrel show that otherwise plagues most black performers who fall back on those tricks for easy laughs. A prescription: If you don't believe me that there's a finesse to making even a good bland film, then watch Legally Blonde 2 back-to-back with this one and learn the error of your ways.

I must admit, when I sat down to watch this, I was pleasantly surprised; it was funnier than I had imagined... however, with my expectations being very, very low, it doesn't really mean that the film is anything more than average. A pretty good amount of laughs, but nothing memorable. The ending seemed to be too much of a "happy ending" and was obviously done to open the film up to the mainstream crowd. The plot is decent enough, but it is obviously just written to put the characters in unlikely situations, and is at least a little too over-the-top. The pacing is pretty good, the film isn't really boring for the 90 minutes it lasts(then again, it isn't really *that* hard to make people laugh for an hour and a half). The characters are somewhat well-written, and one or more manage to rise above simply being tired stereotypes. The dialog is often quite humorous, and mostly well-delivered. The acting is decent, for a bunch of no-names; the only well-known actors in the cast are Jake Busey and Jamie Foxx, both of whom prove their worth as comedic actors. The humor is quite good, if a bit dull and predictable. The film has next to no memorable parts to it, though it is somewhat funny. All in all, an average comedy, and worth watching *once* if you can see it for free. I recommend it to fans of typical American comedies. If it's on TV, see it, unless you've seen it before. I have seen it once, and have no intention of seeing it again. 5/10

"Held Up" is one of the those feel good comedic movies that doesn't require a whole lot of thought. "Held Up" is an enjoyable comedy that played like a comedy of errors. Jamie Foxx is a comedian that almost matches the comedic level of someone like Chris Rock. This was the perfect match for Foxx and the movie because I don't think "Held Up" could have been made without him. I enjoyed how Foxx mixed the comedy with scenes of drama. It gave a nice balance to a light-hearted and good natured film. Everyone played a comedic part in this film from Barry Corbin to Nia Long and Jake Busey. "Held Up" is just good fun.