Den of Thieves

As crime dramas go, Hollywood has written the book on them. Just in my movie going life, I have to believe that hundreds of these films have been produced and released. To name a handful, there are "Narc", "Dark Blue", "End of Watch", "Contraband" and the like. Will these films slow down? Not likely since we are now offered "Den of Thieves".

 

A gritty Los Angeles crime saga which follows the intersecting and often personally connected lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's Dept. headed up by Lt. "Big Nick" O'Brien (Gerard Butler) with comrades Murph Connors (Brian Van Holt) and Gus Henderson (Mo McRae) and the state's most successful bank robbery crew headed up by Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) with comrades Donnie Wilson (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) and Bo "Bosco" Ostroman (Evan Jones) as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on The Federal Reserve Bank of downtown LA.

Every day, $120mm in cash is taken out of circulation and destroyed by the Federal Reserve--unless someone such as these notorious bank robbers can pull off the ultimate heist and get to the money first...right under the noses of LA's most feared division of law enforcement.

 

Others to round out the cast are Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Enson Levoux, Maurice Compte as Benny "Borracho" Magalon, Kaiwi Lyman as Tony Z' Zapata, Dawn Olivieri as Debbie O'Brien, Nick's wife and Eric Braeden as Ziggy Zerhusen.

 

This was remarkably well directed by first time director Christian Gudegast. With no other directing experience under his belt--not even TV, I am shocked that he was able to extract an extremely realistic attitude of their respective characters from his actors  Being in an over-the-top line of work these guys are in--no matter what side of the law they were in, was carried out in an extremely delineated way. Anyone viewing this film would believe these guys are the characters they played. He will receive more work. It was also written by Gudegast ("Soldier of Fortune" (TV movie) '97, "A Man Apart" '03, "Pink Panther Mafia" '15, "London Has Fallen" '16) based on a story by Gudegast and Paul Scheuring. Certainly this  filmmaker's comfort zone is in the writing realm per his resume. Considering this film didn't have a huge star basis, except maybe Butler, this was amazingly well written, especially considering the running time. Showing these two different crews' similarities--even they were good vs. bad, was a stroke of genius and keeps the audience that much more glued to the screen. Actually with the exception of a couple of slow places in script and a small amount of choppiness, this plot kept me riveted.

 

There is certainly nothing Academy Award worthy here--it's an idea older than dirt, but with the good and bad crew obtaining so many similarities, it begs to ask, who's the bad guys? With that and a twist you don't expect by films' end, this is a great popcorn flick!

 

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                      Rated: R                                  140mins.