The movie is not very good, but still makes me pretty surprised because he is better than I thought.
Den of Thieves opened with astounding statistics: in Los Angeles, bank robberies happen every 48 minutes. That is, has not finished one episode Rumah Uya, one bank has been robbed in Los Angeles. This made the city dubbed the "bank robbery center around the world". We were then invited to see a robbery sequence that worked so well, I did not realize that what was robbed was not a bank, but a truck that was perched in a donut shop. Well you know. Approximately how many donuts stall each one episode.
Watching this sequence, I thought that I would see a heist-thriller movie that would surprise me because I did not expect to see a good movie. The shoots are convincing, the camera moves energetically, accompanied by synthesizer background music designed to make us thump. It turns out the movie is not very good, but still makes me quite surprised because he is better than I thought. Its twist plot is fine too.
From the technique they rob, it is clear these masked criminals are professionals who are likely to have been involved in military operations. The leader is Merrimen (Pablo Screiber), a marine who swerved into a robber. The crew includes Bosco (Evan Jones), Levi (50 Cent), and Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr.). Many casualties fell, but all they got were empty trucks owned by banks.
"We are facing an unusual 'animal', bro," Nick (Gerard Butler) told his colleagues, a Los Angeles police official, while chewing the donuts he picked up from the scene. Yes, lying on the parking lot. Unit led by Nick is a special unit whose crew seems required to have tattoos, act slenge'an, and dare to beat the prospective suspect. Unattended anyway. They are uniformed thugs, though more often uniformed when on duty. Uhm, you know what I mean.
His genius, from the scene of the crime scene, Nick could immediately conclude that the culprit was a Merrimen crew. Noteworthy is Nick knows the Merrimen and Merrimen know Nick. They seem to have been rivals in the past, and because of the contradictory professions, they are rampant in the present. Nick knew what Merrimen had done, but could not catch him knowing he had no solid proof.
Or that's the reason for the movie to be almost two and a half hours long. Two-and-a-half hours. Which robber films are all along if not Michael Mann? Specially titled Heat? But this film is not made by Mann, but director debutant Christian Gudegast. However, Gudegast clearly refers to the Heat, not just the cinematic style, even to the outline of the plot and character dynamics.
Butler and Schreiber are made similar to Al Pacino and Robert De Niro of the Heat, which on the surface are indeed foes, but actually intimate. The difference, Nick and Merrimen feel more macho and compete to memparadekan kemachoan them. There is an interesting scene in the middle of the movie; Nick and Merrimen show off their skill in the firing range. Without a word, Nick then seemed amazed by the accuracy of Merrimen. Do not think about the plausibility of the scene, because later we will be presented with Nick who woke up in front of Merrimen after the night "play" with a commercial sex worker.
But this does not work because it has no depth. Both are one-dimensional characters. The scene of the peak, where both had to shoot personally, seemed awkward. The drama simply does not work. Attempts to make them personal, like Nick told in the process of divorce with his wife, was not in place because it did not connect with the part of the long robbery that followed after.
The robberies are not simple because they involve playing cat-kucingan. Nick holds Donnie who is his Merrimen driver, then interrogates him. There was not much he could get, so Nick released Donnie to become an informant, while waiting for the next move from Merrimen. Merrimen's big plan is to rob the Federal Reserve bank. Robbing a regular bank is risky because every money has a trackable serial number. Well, rob the Federal Reserve bank more safely, because in any given period, this bank will remove the serial number before the defective money is destroyed. Their target is to take the money right after the serial number is removed but before it is destroyed. Bro, their plans are really mature.
Although this is the first time for Gudegast to control directly behind the camera, he was confident when working on action scenes. The action sequences are exciting, energetic, and noisy. He knows how to move and place the camera especially during peak scenes involving shootings on a traffic jam.
I think this movie contains too many things. The duration of 140 minutes is obviously long and the movie stumbles because of the draggy mid section. Den of Thieves seems to be a more sticky film if made more solid. However, this movie makes me agree with the statement that there is no bad movie when the film could make Gerard Butler look good play. He's pretty good here, mostly because he does not have to show anything but kemachoan.