Empire State (2013)
Directed by Dito Montiel
No — Empire State is not woke, scoring 5 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Empire State arrives with the quiet dignity of a film that was never asked to be more than a rental.
Consciousness Markers
The cast includes Dwayne Johnson in a supporting role and a Greek immigrant family at the center, but diversity is incidental rather than a deliberate representational statement.
The armored car company is depicted as negligent and exploitative, especially in undercompensating a dead guard's family, but this is plot motivation rather than an explicit eat-the-rich thesis.
There are no LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext in the film.
Female characters exist mainly as girlfriends or plot-adjacent figures, with no feminist agenda or gender-conscious critique.
The film touches on immigrant working-class life in Queens, but it does not engage with racial justice, systemic racism, or racial consciousness.
There is no environmental or climate-related content.
The film does not address body image, body positivity, or related themes.
There is no meaningful depiction or discussion of neurodivergence.
It is based on a true crime story, but it does not revise or reframe history through a modern ideological lens.
The film is a straightforward heist drama and does not pause for preachy or didactic messaging.
Why it received this score
Empire State arrives with the quiet dignity of a film that was never asked to be more than a rental. Dito Montiel, working from the true story of the 1982 Sentry Armored Car robbery, assembles Liam Hemsworth, Emma Roberts, and a supporting Dwayne Johnson, then points the camera at Astoria, Queens, and lets the machinery grind. It is a heist picture, and it knows it. There is no thesis lurking beneath the vault door.
The film's cultural footprint is faint. A Greek immigrant family anchors the story, and Dwayne Johnson occupies a supporting chair, though neither detail is arranged for our edification. The armored car company is drawn as negligent and stingy, paying a dead guard's widow a fraction of what she is owed, which supplies the protagonist with his grievance. That is the extent of the class resentment on offer. The film wants revenge on a bad employer, not a restructuring of the economy.
Elsewhere the ledger is blank. No LGBTQ characters or subtext. No feminist reading of the women who orbit the plot as girlfriends and bystanders. No engagement with race, the environment, body image, or neurodivergence. The true-crime source material is dramatized, not reinterpreted through a contemporary lens, and the film never stops to instruct us. It simply follows a weak man, a loud friend, and eleven million dollars through a series of poor decisions. The result is a modest, competent crime drama with no interest in the conversation of its own moment. For that restraint, at least, it deserves a small nod.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
After failing to get into the police academy, Chris Potamitis settles for a security guard job with an armoured truck company. After he makes the mistake of mentioning the company's lax security to his best friend, He's unwittingly drawn into an elaborate scheme to rob the abundant amounts of cash being stored on their premises—resulting in the largest cash heist in U.S.history.
Questions about Empire State
Is Empire State woke?
No — Empire State is not woke, scoring 5 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Empire State have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Eat the Rich at 10.
How does Empire State compare to other 2013 movies?
It ranks #197 of the 274 films from 2013 we've scored; their average is 14. The wokest is Belle (76).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.