Breaking into a vault door is the #1 plotline in many Hollywood movies. Whether crooks are blowing through Vault doors with dynamite, cutting through concrete walls with diamond blades or using a “Trojan horses” to sneak their way into a bank and rob the place, the Vault Door is usually the main thing that is in the way of our thief and his payday. Sometimes these movie break-ins are possible, but other they’re insane and could never be accomplished in the short period of time movies allows. Regardless, breaking into vaults is fun to watch. That’s why I’m compiling a list of the top five movies that showcase vault doors.

#1 – “Town” – This movie is about a group of buddies in Boston that attempt a series of break-ins, two of them involving vault doors. The first break-in comes at minute five of the movie. It’s a normal day at a bank. Out of nowhere, three men enter a busy bank, with one of them smashing a guard in the face. Within seconds, the lead character, Ben Affleck, and his crew threaten the manager, grab his “day key” and enter the vault door. There’s no cutting, explosives or helicopter tricks. They simple threaten the life of a cashier and the manager opens the vault. Within five minutes, they’re in the vault, steel the cash and they’re gone. This could happen, but the crooks better time it just right. Many locks on bank vaults can only be entered at certain times of the day. And it sometimes takes up to three men, with three different combinations, to open a bank’s vault door. It could be done, but everything needs to go just right. The second vault break-in isn’t exactly a vault door, it’s more a secure door at a baseball stadium. After employees take the cash from ticket sales and food to a secure “bill counting” room, our thieves knock on the door and threaten to kill the employee’s wives inside, “the Helens”, if their husbands don’t open the door and fork over the cash. This could happen. But it only works if you love your wife. Just kidding. Great movie, super cool chase scenes and very creative twists and turns evolving around security. I love the characters more than the robberies, but I strongly suggest watching this movie. The vault doors aren’t a huge part the of film, but it’s very cool to watch a creative director attempt to make a heist film fresh and fun to watch.

#2 – “Dog Day Afternoon” is – Seriously badass film. Made in the early 1970s, it’s one of Al Pacino’s first movies. In this film, Sonny needs money for a sex change operation for his boyfriend. So he does what any dotting boyfriend would do: he robs a federal bank in the middle of the day with no experience. In this film, the vault door is front and center. While cashiers are servicing guests, Sonny pulls a rifle from inside Rose’s box and demands access to the vault. He doesn’t get access, but he does end up rubbishing through the cashier’s drawers where he finds about $500. As this is going on, one of the crew members can’t take the stress and leaves midway through the caper. They never get access to the vault door, but the film ends with a bang. That’s all I will say in case you haven’t seen the movie. Not a movie that has a lot of scenes about breaking into vaults or wild action sequences, but Sonny’s intensity and quest to be a good boyfriend, even if he goes to jail, is moving.

#3 – “Heat” – A classic heist film. All the heavy-hitter actors are in this film. Bobby Di Nero, Al Pacino, Val, it’s amazing. Semi-trucks crash armored trucks, and banks are robbed, but there’s only one scene showcasing a vault door attack. It comes in the middle of the movie when Val’s character is attempting to cut into a commercial-grade vault door with a cutting torch. With the FBI outside in a nondescript van watching, all they need is for Bobby D’s crew to bust in the vault room and they can arrest them all. But one of the cops inside the van makes a sound and the crew can smell the feds from a mile away. The crew stops drilling the vault door and bail. This is one of the only movies that truly depicts what it’s like to cut or drill into a vault door. It’s dirty, time-consuming, and near impossible. A charts movies. Watch it. It will also deter you from wanting to get in the bank robbing game. Spoiler alert. Not a lot of characters survive.

#4 – “Panic Room” – This super cool movie is about a mother (Jody Foster) and her daughter being forced to hide in a panic room when a thief enters their home in search of a payday. The vault door in this movie is front and center. It’s the door on the panic room, the part of the house the father bought to protect his family against God knows what. It’s drill-proof, bullet-resistant, and impossible to break into as the crooks would tell you if you were a character in the movie. There’s a scene in the film when the mother is running through the house to call the police. With the crook chasing her, our lead character opens the vault door, enters the vault room, and hits a mechanical button that auto-locks the vault door shut, protecting her from the armed perusing crook. What I don’t like about this scene is the switch that shuts the door is “automated”, it’s mechanical. This isn’t good, because what if the switch failed? Our lead character would be dog meat. That’s why most vault doors have manual operating internal handles that are NOT MECHANICAL. You really don’t want to rely on electricity going out or an automated “locking bar” to not activate because it broke or something. It’s better if the internal handle is operated by hand. This way you don’t have to rely on parts work to save your life. You simply want to shut the vault door’s handle and have it locked in place. Simple. Let’s forget about the internal release handle for a second. This vault door movie is action-packed and worth watching. Especially, if you’re planning to buy a vault door, vault room, or storm shelter. Because the vault door in the movie will give you great ideas about your purchase.

#5 – Ocean’s II – Ok, if you want fun, great dialogue, and sexy, cool characters, this is your movie. It’s all about how Mr. Ocean gets a crew together to break into an impossible vault door at a casino in Las Vegas. That’s the heist part, but it’s really about Ocean’s quest to get back his ex-wife back, a beauty played by Julia Roberts. She’s dating the owner of the hotel George Clooney is robbing. I’m not going to get into all the madness in this film, because it’s too much to mention. Let’s jump into the scenes that involve breaking into the vault door. You guessed it, they don’t achieve these will explosives either. That’s too easy. Our cool characters devise an elaborate plan that involves a lot of sleight of hand. To be short, they build a set of the bank vault and stage a performance that looks like the vault room is being robbed in the surveillance room. But it’s really not. It’s a stage they build off the stripe in a warehouse. When the police arrive to investigate the robbery, the Casino Owner opens his vault door and Clooney and his crew, dressed as police, enter and rob the place blind. Total genius heist. By the way, the biggest heist of all isn’t whether or not Clooney robs the vault, it’s if he steals back the heart of this ex-wife. And the answer is… of course. it’s a movie with a big Hollywood ending. Now, let’s be clear: “Is the vault door robbery the best part of the script. No, not by a long shot. But it does make for a good backdrop to watch Clooney and this star-studded cast do some super cool stuff. Watch it, you won’t be disappointed.

This concludes our blog, “The top five movies involving vault doors. If you have any vault door, safe room, or panic room questions, please contact us at Sportsman Steel Safes and ask our salesmen to tell you everything you need to know about a vault in five minutes. We can do it. Thx

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