Review: Den Of Thieves, An Overly Short Mess That Could Have Been Something Good
- Feb 1, 2018
- 2 min read
Clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes, Den Of Thieves, already a long film, feels like it's missing at least half an hour of footage, footage that could have saved it.
Nick O'Brien (Gerard Butler) is a standard tough guy cop. He's built like a gorilla, doesn't care about the rules and does what he has to to get the bad guys. Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) is very much like him, only he's a career criminal. Naturally these two are set to meet head to head, and when they do, it's going to be explosive.
Den Of Thieves feels like someone took a good movie, took out all the boring stuff like character development and plot, and released what was left over. Alternatively it's an enjoyable action thriller with a whole lot of unecssary extra scenes thrown in, neither of which are good. Nick O'Brien is setup to be the sympathetic asshole but he leaves the sympathetic behind the moment we find out about his family life, which he is slowly destroying. Ray is very much the same, an ex-marine who doesn't want to kill anyone, drawn into a bad situation. But none of this is expanded on and when the time comes to care, you just won't. The same can be said for every other character. 50 Cent is in this movie, mumbling every word and SPOILER ALERT, when he finally cops it, the sad music swells as the cop who shot him is their to watch him go. The film is screaming "Look, feel emotion, it's that part of the movie now." But that's not going to happen because we don't have any reason to.
While the opening sequence, an armoured car robbery and the subsequent shootout, is one of the best heists since the opening of The Dark Knight, and the finale is suitably enjoyable, everything between fails to come together. The big heist is disjointed, often feeling like entire scenes have been cut as characters seem to teleport around the place. Gerard Butler gives a solid performance, as does Pablo Schreiber, but everyone else...not so much. The usual "how did they do it?" feels tacked on, like it was put there because every other film does it, and while it is one of the few highlights, it comes off as unnecessary.
I wouldn't say that Den Of Thieves is an outright awful movie, it just isn't. But it's missing too much to be a really could movie. Which is a shame, because it could have a decent time. As it stands, cross your fingers and hope for a directors cut.
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