MOVIE REVIEW: Den of Thieves

Gritty crime drama with some of the best gun fight scenes I’ve seen in awhile, starring Gerard Butler, Curtis Jackson, and Pablo Schreiber.Â A group of former marines are now the most lethal bank robbers in Los Angeles.Â They are about to go head to head with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes section when the theft of an empty armoured vehicle goes wrong.Â The gang get away but now the dedicated thief catchers are on their trail.Â It’s a mix of Training Day and Heat.

Well I’m back to press screenings after 10 blissful days away from them.Â It’s not that I hate movies now, but it’s like those small moments being out of pain, for those of you that know about chronic pain an hour is like a vacation in itself.Â The 10 days walking a beach in Spain, with nothing to do but eat, drink, and be merry, have been some of the best of the last year.Â I didn’t have to take as many meds, I was relaxed, and didn’t touch the keyboard of this laptop to write a critique.Â Now I’m back and it feels as though those wintry yet sunny and warm days in Spain were a fond childhood memory.Â I realise I’m not doing much to make you think I missed this, but in a way I did.

So one of the first movies I’ve got to see is Den of Thieves.Â An action drama on the gritty side of the street for what it is.Â The score should really have been higher though.Â The film is suffering from about 40 minutes of footage that is not needed, at two hours twenty minutes, it needed at least forty minutes cut, at least 40!Â I don’t mind long films once the time is well spent but here there are scenes like the Prom scene that are not needed in the slightest, and a flashback scene to one of the bank robbers getting out of jail that is just pointless.

I’m not full on against the film and as I said the gun fight scenes are fantastic, some of the best I’ve seen in a while, it’s just that there seems to be a need to explain things that are self-evident.Â The film walks the line between the two great films of Training Day and Heat.Â With Gerald Butler looking like he’s in the middle of a high steroid diet, and trying to hide that Scottish accent.Â He can play this role in his sleep at this point and it’s everything that you expect from him.Â Curtis Jackson, and a few of the other known cast members are underused and just there for the sake of having a name actor.Â Pablo is the unknown quantity for me, I don’t know if I liked his performance as the leader of the thieves or if he’s just another bad guy role.

If I was going out with my friends for a night out of beer and an action movie, then this would be our first choice, the action and drama are good.Â If there was a cut of this film with the pointless exposition taken out and that 40 minutes shaved off then it would be at least a four.Â The film makers know how to take from other movies and add them in.Â The Prom scene is taken directly from Bad Boys 2, while the Prison release scene is a variation on the Cape Fear release of Robert DeNiro.Â Which is all fine, if they were needed, but they are not.Â If you like action films and Gerald “I’m about to burst”“ Butler then this film would be for you.Â I would watch this at home again, but I doubt that sitting for that long, in a film where the bad scenes allow your mind to wander around, in a theatre is something that I can do.

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