REVIEW: Den of Thieves

A good heist movie can be a lot of fun.  There is a lot of entertainment in watching the robbers work through their plan and then seeing the entire, convoluted mess come together at the end.  Of course, a good heist movie also has some sort of twist.  And a moustache.  Well, they may not all have a moustache, but it doesn't hurt the flow of the film when there's a dusty upper lip (Edward Norton knows what I'm talking about).

With Den of Thieves, we don't really have a good heist film, but it isn't bad either.  This is one of those movies that occupy the middle ground, where it just sort of exists and nothing is very memorable.  There is something to say about the well shot action sequences, but what we get outside of those moments is far from compelling.

The film focuses around a group of skilled bank robbers and their big plan to rob the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles.  Leading the group is Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber), a former special forces bad ass that assembled a solid team.  Standing in their way is a group of detectives led by Nick O'Brien (Gerard Butler), a rough and tumble cop who plays by his own rules.  Essentially, he is a super hyped up version of almost as many cliches as you could think of.

Part of the issue with Den of Thieves is that we spend most of our time with O'Brien, and I guess he is supposed to be the protagonist that we should be rooting for.  The problem is that O'Brien is a total Neanderthal.  The degree to with Butler takes the 'manly' aspects of O'Brien are so annoying and irritating that I won't shy away from being redundant in my description.  The pursuit of his alpha-male, top dog performance brings us a lead that is such a dick that I feel he was better suited for kicking sand in people's faces at the beach while belching out the few letters of the alphabet that he could remember.  Honestly, I could not stand this character and I didn't get the feeling from director Christian Gudegast that we were supposed to dislike him.  

One of the villains is a quiet bartender named Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) that gets kidnapped by O'Brien and his jackass friends who beat him into giving them information.  For some reason O'Brien later makes it clear to Merrimen that Donnie talked.  I believe that Gudegast did this to show some sort of unorthodox style of O'Brien, but it is so enormously stupid.  There are a few times where I think we are being shown the smarts of O'Brien when it is all actually dumb, dumb, dumb.  And stupid.  And dumb.  At the end of the movie, the robbers are stuck in traffic and O'Brien, who knows that the villains have body armour on and that they will be seriously armed, decides that they should engage in a gunfight with so many civilians around.  They are in a traffic jam.  They aren't going anywhere.  Police officers could literally block off the road ahead of them and arrest them, but O'Brien is too smart for the logical options.  Heck, the police could also have just set up lawn chairs and waited for the baddies to eventually get there.

Gudegast is really reaching for this film to be both dramatic and gritty, something that never quite gets delivered properly.  As I mentioned above, the action sequences are well shot.  They are tight, engaging, and look great.  However, because Gudegast is trying for Den of Thieves to be dramatic we have much of the movie being people talking.  I'm not against this sort of thing, but the dialogue needs to be sharp for it to work, and the script for this film isn't up to that level.  The film is an absurd two hours and twenty minutes,  another indicator that Gudegast believed he had more on his hands than just an action heist movie.  Numerous scenes didn't serve the overall narrative and should have been trimmed.

This isn't a horrible movie.  The only real issue is O'Brien is a disgustingly irritating character that ticked me off, making the movie really feel worse than it was.  Other than that, Den of Thieves exists simply in a state of being okay.  It's heft is rather light, and the drama is without impact.  The twist of the movie isn't as smart as it believes it is, and it will probably have you asking questions over the logic of it.  If you are curious about this film then I won't say stay away from it if you have a method of seeing it where you don't have to spend any money on it, such as a Netflix subscription.  If you are wondering if it is worth rental dollars, it isn't.  There are too many quality and intriguing heist movies available that are more worthy of your money.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars

Rambo, And Why I Disagree With The Popular Opinions

Sylvester Stallone solidified his name and career off of Rocky, and, in 1982, added another mammoth franchise to his portfolio.  In First Blood, Stallone played the part of John J. Rambo, a Vietnam special forces veteran that makes a mess of a small town.  I have always found it confusing that there is a great deal of acclaim for First Blood, and not much love for the sequel, Rambo: First Blood Part 2.  I'm fine with bringing criticism down on my head by saying the first film wasn't much, and the sequel is an iconic gem.

When I was much younger and I saw First Blood, I couldn't quite tell why it was supposed to be a 'good' film.  Rambo freaks out and snaps under the weight of mild abuse from local cops, beats them all up, escapes, and a giant manhunt ensues.  Not to justify the actions of the police, but Rambo was a bit of a dick and brought a lot of it on himself.  Then, when people get injured and someone dies, Rambo protests that he didn't do anything, making himself the victim.  This never sat for me, as the actions and reactions weren't those of a victimized hero.  The 'antagonist,' a sheriff played by Brian Dennehy, spends most of the film saying very common sense things, and, to tell you the truth, he is the relatable character in the film.

Personally, I think part of the problem is that Stallone seems to like to be the hero.  Ten years ago, when I got around to reading the book First Blood, by David Morrell, I understood why I had my issues with the film.  In the book, John Rambo is not a hero.  He isn't even a good guy.  The story is simply of an escalating vortex that two people, Rambo and the sheriff, find themselves in.  The decision to make Rambo the hero in the film is at odds with the story itself.  In short, this just isn't the type of structure that allows for a straightforward protagonist, and shifting the Rambo character towards being a good guy doesn't fit.

On top of this, we have one of the worst, cheesy, characters of that decade.  Rambo's former superior, Trautman (Richard Crenna) is nothing but a walking billboard for John Rambo.  He can't get enough of gushing over Rambo, and, whenever given the chance (and many often when not given the chance) he dotes over the god like abilities of Rambo.  My eyes roll with almost everything he says, essentially every line equating to, 'it turns out he's not just a cook' (sorry for the reference that some may not get).  It's like a kid who is five years old and finally got to meet Santa at the mall and just cannot shut the heck up about it.  He talks about it the entire ride home from the mall.  He talks about it while in the bathtub.  He talks about it while trying to brush his teeth.  Yes, we get it.  Rambo is tough.  Yes, no number of cops, national guard, or soldiers will even be close to good enough to handle Rambo, John J..  Trautman was in the book, but not like this.  SPOILER, at the end he literally blows Rambo's head off with a shotgun.

Now, the second film, oddly called First Blood Part 2, since there can never be another 'first' blood.  Any blood after that would be, second blood, or Rambo: Yet Another Blood.  Anywho, this is the movie that is in my opinion the pinnacle of the franchise, and one of Stallone's best films.  Sadly, the reason I say this is not for the same reasons that Sylvester Stallone was shooting for with this movie.  The script, penned by James Cameron and Stallone, is a fast moving, tightly told action story about Rambo being sent into Vietnam to take pictures of what is suspected to be an abandoned POW camp. When he finds American soldiers held captive there, he nabs one and makes his way to the extraction point, only to have the slimy suit in charge of the operation, Murdock (Charles Napier), abandon him.  This means two things.  First of all, John Rambo is mad.  Secondly, the only solution is explosions.

The reason why I hold this up as the better movie is that it perfectly represents everything that 80s action films were about, and everything that went along with the 'one man army' story (Commando would be the other film to sum up everything of that decade).  There is super-cool music now (because Rambo is going to explode pretty much everyone and everything).  There are muscle porn shots of his vascular body parts as they are forever in a state of flexing for some reason (well, that reason is because Stallone loves his body).  Our specially trained hero can wildly wave an assault rifle around and droves of villains die instantly.  And, on that topic, for being such a highly skilled and trained warrior, why the heck is Rambo seemingly allergic to aiming down the sights of his gun? Our 80s action heroes like shooting from the hip, because, you know, that's not completely dumb at all when you sit down to think about it.  The poster even goes as far as to show Rambo about to shoot an RPG from the hip.

When I said there were explosions in the film, that statement doesn't do it justice.  EVERYTHING shall explode.  It is this over the top nature that syncs this film with the pulse of that decade.  Bamboo huts?  Yep, they will blow up?  Evil man with a pistol?  Yep, he will blow up, and his boots will remain.  Anything and everything is done in this film to amplify the bad-assedness of John Rambo, and to turn up to eleven all that he is capable of.

Judging by the end of the film, Stallone really thought that there was a serious message to this movie. Really, a serious message to a film where a submerged man can leap straight up out of the water and land with his feet on a helicopter hover about four feet above the surface.  Yes, that is the proper vehicle for making some kind of political statement.  Stallone flexes eternal, Russians and Vietnamese soldiers blow up, and Murdock is the ultimate bureaucrat.  As far as having a suit in a film like this, Napier brings it full force and sets the bar.  Even Trautman isn't as annoying as in the first film, and he has some good exchanges with Murdock.

Many love First Blood, and I don't get it.  A good friend of mine once pointed out that Dennehy's character (who 'cruelly' tries to keep Rambo out of his town) is completely proven right in his worries that Rambo would cause trouble.  The 'hero' causes a poop-storm.  In the second film, under the great direction of George P. Cosmatos (who also directed the awesome Cobra, although once again it was awesome not for the reason that Stallone wanted), we are treated to essentially a live action cartoon.  There is no way at all to take Rambo: First Blood Part 2 seriously, but that's okay.  I am positive that Cosmatos didn't want that.  He created an over the top film that would go on to be a perfect time capsule for an entire decade.  And did I mention explosions?