DEN OF THEIVES

HEAT with hot younger actors, kinda.  This movie isn’t what I expected. It was much better. However, I don’t think this is the case were I thought something was going to be horrible but it was average and thus making it seem greater than it actually was. I would have been happy if it was literally a remake of Heat with younger sexier actors.

Okay so we have cops, Nick Flanagan, (Gerard Butler) and his team and then we have Merriman, (Pablo Schreiber) and his team of robbers. This is not a fun movie a la Oceans 11 but its almost as clever. The movie has minimum dialogue and is all business. There’s no friendly chit chat or fooling around with these guys. We only get brief looks into the lives of our robbers and cop with two very different impression.

Nick Flanagan (Gerard Butler) plays the proverbial bad cop. He drinks, parties, and cheats on his wife with strippers. He’s a jerk and bully with little to no redeeming qualities. Quite frankly I hated this guy and hoped I died at the end. On the other side we see the home of the robbers, Levi Enson (50 Cent) as his daughter goes out on what looks to be a prom date. Merriam and their crew gives the daughter’s date a hard time. These men have been friends since high school, played football together and even served together in the armed forces and jail. Their family and have each other backs. Dare I say but their the Fast and The Furious, but the danger is real. I know dudes like this, not robbers, but sweet tough family guys, that may have a criminal background.

The only wild card is Donnie (O’shea Jackson).  Donnie is new babyface member to the crew of robbers. He’s the driver and proves to a weak link that the cops lean on to bring down the team. This film I book ended with two brutal and realistic action scenes. What’s in between is very slow, deliberate. We see the robber plan the heist and the cops watch them learn about the crew. The cops seem like they know every move because of Donnie. But then it goes down and not how we’ve been seeing it planned. That’s because it’s not until the end do you understand what you were really getting was bold face misdirect and I fucking loved it.

Pablo Schreiber is the stand out of this film. His intense and focused performance made you feel like he could have been a cop if not for some bad choices. Not only that by probably a better, more dignified cop than the ones after him. However, we don't get to learn his whole background and why he went in to crime and not law enforcement after the marines.  We just know he's good and efficient at robbing banks.  I hope to see Schreiber more in lead roles. Jackson on the other hand, well actually Jacksons of both hands (50 Cent is no longer using his proper name Curtis Jackson in movies) at times kinda let me down.  50 Cent and O'Shea Jackson acting skills are lacking and at times took me out of the scene because everyone else felt real meanwhile they felt like they were rehearsing lines, especially while on screen next to Schreiber.

But thankfully the movie is focused on Merriman and Flanagan. The whole movie you think know who running things but you have no idea. At least I didn’t and I don’t think I’ve been surprised by a ending of a crime thriller since The Usual Suspects. Usually I can guess who did what but maybe not how they did it. This time I kind of figured out the how but not the who. If this had been a more comedy driven film the ending wouldn’t have been such a surprise. It really didn’t need to recap of the real ins and out of the robbery. Just the reveal alone would have been more impactful and more in line with the rest of the film somber tone. Overall really good film, I recommending to you to see in theaters before it hits the Redbox. 8/10