Coworkers or colleagues. Two largely synonymous words separated by the finest hair of semantics. But there’s a substantial distinction. Coworkers sit in the same building, access the same network, maybe even perform the same job. Colleagues leap into foxholes together, hammer out solutions, crackle with collaborative chemistry, build bonds beyond a task at hand.

In caper cinema, establishing the colleague connection can make all the difference. It’s the pal-around lifeblood of the Ocean’s films. It’s the ideologically urgent thrum of How to Blow Up a Pipeline. It’s the generational remorse and regret of Sneakers. It’s the perks and peccadilloes of the crew from 2003’s The Italian Job. Without that, the safecrackers and wisecrackers are just interchangeable automatons. Faceless functionaries. You know, coworkers.

In Lift, master thief Cyrus Whitaker (Kevin Hart) is tasked to nab $500 million in gold midair before it can be funneled to fund terrorist atrocities. He concocts a fun plot of Copperfieldian flourish. Too bad the people helping him pull it off feel only like coworkers. Perpetual third-banana actor Billy Magnussen is introduced sporting what appears to be (but sadly is not) a robot hand. That would be a more interesting character flourish than his unbridled enthusiasm for every idea Cyrus suggests. (“Nice!” “Love it, love it!” “I like it!”) The inimitable Vincent D’Onofrio understands the panache and personality required to portray a “sort-of” master of disguise but Lift doesn’t know what to do with him beyond “occasional distraction.” And good luck remembering anything about any female character apart from an Interpol agent (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) with whom Cyrus has a romantic past.

Within five minutes of each individual’s introduction (completely with onscreen text), you’ll largely forget their whos, whys and whats. That keeps Lift (debuting tomorrow on Netflix) at the cruising altitude of “reasonable diversion,” with its merits largely resting in the directorial flex of F. Gary Gray. With Lift, Gray treads similar territory as his Italian Job a couple of decades later, only without the convincing cast or the contemptible charisma Edward Norton brought to his role as the villain. On the casting front, it can’t even rise to the level of Now You See Me — swapping Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman for Sam Worthington and Jean Reno as the performers earning “and” or “with” credits.

Although given narrowly defined chess pieces by screenwriter Daniel Kunka, Gray at least knows the fast and furious way to move them around this particular board. As the complications compound on Cyrus’s plan, Lift offers a fun ride through the final act that plays a bit like a more family-friendly 6 Underground. (Vape-pod bullets? OK, then.) Gray is assisted by GOAT action director Vic Armstrong (the Indiana Jones franchise), stunt-team veteran Steve Griffin (Mad Max: Fury Road) and “additional editor” Richard Pearson (The Bourne Supremacy); that last credit suggests the svelte Lift, at 95 minutes pre-credits, has been whittled into something more aerodynamic but tougher to spot on a radar of heist films to remember.

Also absent is Hart’s typical comic joie de vivre as Cyrus, replaced with a wan attempt at Wahlbergian suavity to which he’s not quite suited. At least Lift is not the disaster Hart’s buddy, Dwayne Johnson, delivered for Netflix a couple years ago with Red Notice. Indeed, the color assigned to the Interpol notice on Cyrus and his crew is only “yellow.” Perhaps it passes as progress that Lift’s color indicates caution about breezy caper entertainment rather than a full, dead stop.