The 14 years this film has been in development shows. Supposed to be a riff on 1995’s Heat (gasp), Den of Thieves is a dull, repetitive heist film. Instead of Al Pacino’s Lt. Vincent Hanna of LAPD and Robert De Niro as career criminal Neil McCauley we have Gerard Butler as Nick O’Brien, a hard living LA sheriff obsessed with taking down Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber), who has been carrying out sophisticated bank heists forever.
All comes together as Merrimen and his crew plan to rob the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Los Angeles, with Nick close on their heels. There are wheels within wheels and each twist is supposed to have you jump out of your seat in shock and awe. There is no way that is going to happen as you most probably have nodded off with the plot taking several diversions to follow up on Nick’s trysts with strippers, his getting served divorce papers from his long-suffering wife, him trying to meet his cute-as-button daughter, some long foolish conversations in bars….
- Director: Christian Gudegast
- Cast: Gerard Butler, 50 Cent, Pablo Schreiber, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Evan Jones, Dawn Olivieri, Mo McRae, Max Holloway
- Story line: A tough cop is obsessed with taking down a bank robber
There was a movie called Armored , about a group of disparate, desperate people out to hijack an armoured truck carrying much money. The movie at 88 minutes, moved briskly very like the jolly James Hadley Chase novels we spent our summers breathlessly reading. Den of Thieves is not that movie. Its Keyser Soze moment is underwhelming like everything else. Butler channels his inner manic Mel Gibson as Nick.
The only fun thing about the movie was the traffic jam—I have always wondered what would happen if Dom and his crew were stuck in Bengaluru’s Silk Board at peak hour.
