Den of Thieves (2018)

[baumer]

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[baumer]

Written, produced and directed by Christian Gudegast, who has been a script doctor for most of his career, Den of Thieves marks his arrival with a loud and demonstrative bang.  Den of Thieves tells the story of two different groups of "gangs".  One has guns and badges and the other has guns and bandannas.   The "bad guys" are military trained former soldiers of fortune who plan on robbing the treasury, which has never been robbed before.  The good guys are lead by Gerard Butler, in what I think is his best performance of his career.  He does a delicate and precarious balancing act between what is right and what is allowed.  He's a womanizer, an adulterer, beats witnesses and suspects and runs his unit with reckless abandon.  He's also smart, driven and dedicated to his work.  

 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this is O' Shea Jackson's character.  He's not quite a villain but far from on the right side of the law.  

 

I'm giving this an 8 out 10 but it could have been higher if the plan to rob the treasury wasn't pretty much impossible to pull off.  How they did it was too much for me to believe and they would have been caught in about 7 different places.  But other than that, it's tense, suspenseful, action packed, beautifully shot, brilliantly directed and wonderfully acted.  

 

I liked this movie quite a bit and it was nice to see Eric Braeden in a small role.  

 

And the last 20 minutes is some of the best shootout stuff I've ever seen.  It's up there with Heat.

 

8/10

[promovidal]

This bank heist flick is very reminiscent of Michael Mann's 19995 release 'Heat' - Los Angeles bank heist with epic gun battles. The good guys and the bad guys know each other, or at least of each other. Where 'Den of Thieves' is different is in the main character of Gerard Butler, Big Nick O'Brien. Nick is not a good person, he's kind of an anti-hero because you don't necessarily like him or his motives. He's not fully unlikeable, but he's certainly not the most sympathetic of characters.

 

O'Shea Jackson is outstanding in the film. He has a shy or weak persona, but looks are deceiving. Pablo Schreiber as Ray Merriman, looking much like he did in '13 Hours' is a great casting choice for the detail-oriented and calculating leader of the outlaws. 50 Cent is good, but he doesn't have a large presence in the film, save for a few scenes.

 

The rest of the Regulators, the "good guys", the members of the Los Angeles Sheriff Major Crimes are forgettable in the fact that there's not much interaction with them. We aren't told enough or introduced to them in meaningful ways to make us care about their characters.

 

The film clocks in at 2 hours and 20 minutes, and you can feel the time. A storyline that should have been cut is the relationship with Big Nick and his wife. There are a few scenes with them, but in the end, nothing is resolved and it wouldn't change the story one bit to not be introduced to the wife or even know of her existence. The relationship doesn't even have a bearing on the character of Big Nick or the outcome of the film.

 

The pace of the movie resembles that of 'Heat' as well. You have some fast-paced action/story-telling up until the day of the heist - and then everything slows down. You have Big Nick standing contemplatively at the ocean for minutes, Merriman slowly getting out of bed and slowly walking to his car, examining the sunrise, traffic, and neighborhood that surrounds him. This is not a detraction from the film at all, just one more way 'Den of Thieves' is an homage to 'Heat'.

 

Towards the end, I definitely felt the tension rising - thanks in part to the sparse use of soundtrack throughout. 

 

Overall, I really enjoyed the film. I'm not sure I'd watch it repeatedly, but it was a fun watch.

 

My video review is posted here: https://youtu.be/zwuVenZReuk

[EarlyDeadlinePredictions]

This was pretty good heist movie although a bit long. A remake of Heat but not as good with some homages to some other films thrown in there (Usual Suspects style ending, Bad Boys 2 comedic scene). 

 

Positives

 

- Gerald Butler and Pablo Schreiber were great as the leads on both sides but Nick (Butler) was easily the best character. He's an asshole cop who's really good at his job and I ended up rooting for his side to win because of Butler's performance. O Shea Jackson was the other standout in this as the man caught in the middle. 

- The shootout scenes (especially the ending) were fantastic. Some of the best I've seen in a while. 

- Heist was a fun and had good tension even though it was over the top and unrealistic. 

 

Negatives

 

- The other characters on both sides barely got any development at all. You really didn't care about any of the deaths in the ending shootouts except Merriman (Schreiber). 

- As much as I liked Merriman they should've spent more on his backstory of how he went from ex solider to bank robber. Both lead character's didn't interact prior to the final showdown as much I would of liked. No restaurant type scene like in Heat. 

- The movie is too long. The story-line with Nick's family went nowhere and should've been replaced with more development for both crews. 

- The ending twist was unnecessary and O Shea Jackson's British accent at the end was awful. 

 

Overall pretty good for a movie that probably got overlooked in January. 7.5/10 (B)