Den of Thieves (2018) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

While planning a bank heist, a thief gets trapped between two sets of criminals. Every day, $120mm in cash is taken out of circulation and destroyed by the Los Angeles Branch of the Federal Reserve - unless a notorious, elite crew of bank robbers can pull off the ultimate heist and get to the money first... right under the noses of LA's most feared division in law enforcement.

Storyline: A gritty L.A crime saga which follows the intersecting and often personally connected lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's Dept. and the state's most successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank of downtown Los Angeles. Written by STXfilms

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, April 22, 2018 Christian Gudegast's name may not ring any bells. He's making his directorial debut with Den of Thieves, which he also wrote. He penned the middling A Man Apart and the disappointing sequel London Has Fallen. Those aren't two films that scream out "talent in the making," but he's made the transition from keyboard to camera well enough with Den of Thieves, a movie that brings nothing new to the cops-and-bank-robbers genre but that powers through with some impressive scenes and bubbling fierceness amidst a bit of filler that drags the movie down through a runtime that can be both exhilaratingly fast and sloth-like slow, which is extended in an unrated cut that runs a few minutes longer. The film proves engaging at most times, though. It's at its best in building tension and executing action, allowing for slow-burn intensity but it rings rather hollow throughout the sometimes copious amounts of fat that bog it down, particularly through the middle stretch.

A bank is robbed every 48 minutes in Los Angeles, making the city "the bank robbery capital of the world." A band of thieves, well armed, trained in military tactics, and determined to get their money at any price, set a plan in motion to rob the only bank that's never before been hit: the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles. The plan is complex. The mastermind is an ex-Marine named Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber), whose crew includes a talented young driver named Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), a family man named Levi (50 Cent), and the hotheaded Bo (Evan Jones), amongst a few others. The plan is brazen and demands precision, involving stealing money scheduled for destruction, and dependent on many moving parts playing in synchronized harmony, with countless cameras and eyes gazing in every direction. The cops are on to them, too. A small team of cops who operate on the fringes of the law, known as "The Renegades," are led by the grizzled Nick O'Brien (Gerard Butler), a family man whose life is on the verge of collapse.

The movie takes the "steal the to-be-destroyed money" idea from Mad Money, folds that into Heat, and and melts it all into the gritty gray-area and violent world of Training Day. Of course, it's not as good as either of the previous films, but Den of Thieves is certainly up there when it's at its best. The film begins with one of the most intense and engagingly crafted cops-and-robbers shootouts since Heat, and it ends with another. What comes in the middle, however, is maddening example of unbalanced filmmaking. Tight narrative cohesion is thrown out the window. Character drama, which ultimately means very little to the movie (only a scene in which 50 Cent's character has a chat with his daughter's boyfriend has any visceral impact by film's end, and only indirectly), is elevated in position above the action and the intensity of various robberies, high stakes meetings between cops and robbers, and scenes in which the criminals stake out the Federal Reserve and get Donnie inside, posing as a food delivery man. There is an entire subplot involving Nick and his disgruntled wife, with his two daughters caught in the middle of the couple's ferocious tug-of-war. It's an entirely vapid storyline that cuts, rather than enhances, the focal point drama and action. The film is in dire need of additional cuts, too, but when it's on, it's gripping, fantastic, even, and one of the best examples of its kind.

Even as the movie is overlong and slogs through some other recycled character bits as it desperately tries to toe the gray-area line between right and wrong, it overcomes with its intensity of performances, precision of craftsmanship, and the unrelentingly excellent, engrossing action it executes. Rookie director Christian Gudegast may not yet fully grasp the importance of pacing and trimming fat, but he certainly knows how to build tension and craft some bloody, realistic, gritty, and emotionally fueled action scenes. The performances are stellar, with each character displaying a complexity that moves them beyond maneuvering pawns only meant to set up various action along interesting set pieces. Instead, there's a weight to them, and much of the character build-up does prove worthwhile, but that Nick subplot just kills the movie's middle stretch. The more interesting, and less complexly presented, subplots come from the other side of the law; the movie would have been better served building up Donnie, Levi, and Ray and leaving Nick's personal problems out of the film entirely.

Den of Thieves is a frustrating movie. At its best, it tangles with the genre's big boys for a seat at the supremacy table. When it's on, it's glue-to-the-screen intense. When it's off, it's sluggish, not unbearable, but spending valuable resources for minimal gain. Nick's family problems are the biggest offender. The cast is uniformly good and Christian Gudegast shows growth and potential, just needing to better understand pacing to compliment the many high points and moments in the film. Universal's Blu-ray is solid. Video and audio are terrific and a few extras round out a nice package. This seems like a candidate for another Universal UHD re-release a few months down the line, but it's impossible to say. Recommended.

[CSW] -3.6- The heist and shootout scenes are intriguing and exciting. Unfortunately these scenes bookend the movie and everything in between in a little slow and sloppy. I liked it, but was puzzled as to the reason his wife was in the show. So he has family problems. So does everyone else. We already knew he was an alpha male so all of that part of the story could have been omitted taking some of the drag out of the middle of the film. The ending although somewhat expected raised my score by one full point.
Note: MARSOC Marine - An average of 11 months of grueling training and the mastery of seven weapons are just some of the hurdles to join the elite tier of the Corps'. After serving three years as a Marine, MARSOC candidates arrive at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in the best shape of their lives.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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