Den of Thieves (2018)
Directed by Christian Gudegast
A gritty crime saga which follows the 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.
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34 films that influenced Den of Thieves
What critics say influenced Den of Thieves
As Den of Thieves‘s first shot, an overhead view of the rain-soaked streets of Los Angeles, gives way to the scene of an armored-car robbery that goes awry because of a trigger-happy thief, one may wonder if the film is more than just an homage to Heat , but also a copy-and-paste job.
'Heat'-lite.
The intricate double storyline is an obvious knockoff of the one in “Heat” (with a distant echo of “The French Connection”), and for roughly 45 minutes of the film’s 2-hour-and-20-minute running time, “Den of Thieves” is sturdy enough to earn the comparison.
Time has not been kind to Gudegast’s film: Den of Thieves is such a dumb misunderstanding of the genres in which it plays, such a loud, interminable shart of unmitigated machismo, such a heavy-handed rip-off of Heat and The Usual Suspects and even Ocean’s Eleven (and maybe even The Fast and the Furious, but for scumbags) that it feels anachronistic on arrival, the kind of melodramatic, pulpy studio action flick that doesn’t get made anymore because it shouldn’t.
“Den of Thieves” rips several hundred pages out of the Michael Mann “Heat” playbook.
It’s a blatant Michael Mann knock-off, homaging Heat to the point of borderline plagiarism, and its complicated heist plot has shades of films like Inside Man and The Usual Suspects.
The execution in these moments is thrilling, although muddied by a final plot twist that slavishly apes “The Usual Suspects.”
Finally, there's a twist ending that makes the one in The Usual Suspects seem credible by comparison.
But there’s another movie whose influence hovers over this one: Bryan Singer’s “The Usual Suspects.”
Time has not been kind to Gudegast’s film: Den of Thieves is such a dumb misunderstanding of the genres in which it plays, such a loud, interminable shart of unmitigated machismo, such a heavy-handed rip-off of Heat and The Usual Suspects and even Ocean’s Eleven (and maybe even The Fast and the Furious, but for scumbags) that it feels anachronistic on arrival, the kind of melodramatic, pulpy studio action flick that doesn’t get made anymore because it shouldn’t.
“Den of Thieves” may not be as moody as “To Live and Die in L.A.” or as clever as “The Usual Suspects,” but it works well on its own terms.
Finally, I really did love the actual heist, and while the sequence doesn’t compare to the one in Rififi , there are at least elements of it that do deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as that 1955 classic.
“Den of Thieves” starts off promisingly, with an atmospheric heist scene reminiscent of Michael Mann films like “Heat” and “Thief.”
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(It really makes you appreciate how unique Mann is.) Shorter and sillier and Den of Thieves could have been a fun heist flick like Point Break.
Cobbling together pieces of many a similar effort, London Has Fallen screenwriter turned first-time director Christian Gudegast must hope the audience won’t notice he’s borrowing so liberally from everything — from Heat and Point Break to The Usual Suspects and The Driver, actually.
It’s a film that wears its inspirations openly, with a whole lot of “Training Day,” “Rampart,” “The Usual Suspects” and “Inside Man” in the mix.
Visually, Gudegast is hovering somewhere between the digital inkiness of Collateral and the sun-blasted urban apocalypse of Training Day.
Butler plays Big Dick like he's half Pacino from Heat , half Denzel from Training Day , a tattooed super-detective who isn't above shedding a little bit of blood in order to make the streets a safer place.
I’m all for grungy, teeth-punching police thrillers (Training Day/End Of Watch), but only given something remotely plausible to work with.
Since the film is desperately trying to be something akin to Training Day, but also an Ocean's Eleven rip off, it plays its action in this weird middle ground between gritty realism and bombastic gun fights.
He goes full “Training Day” — OK, half “Training Day” — for a heist thriller about ruthless cops hounding after murderous bank robbers.
It’s particularly noticeable in writer-director Christian Gudegast’s feature, because the actor is playing a gangsta-style law enforcement anti-hero who gives Mickey Rourke in “Year of the Dragon” a run for the money for sheer repellence.
Time has not been kind to Gudegast’s film: Den of Thieves is such a dumb misunderstanding of the genres in which it plays, such a loud, interminable shart of unmitigated machismo, such a heavy-handed rip-off of Heat and The Usual Suspects and even Ocean’s Eleven (and maybe even The Fast and the Furious, but for scumbags) that it feels anachronistic on arrival, the kind of melodramatic, pulpy studio action flick that doesn’t get made anymore because it shouldn’t.
Since the film is desperately trying to be something akin to Training Day, but also an Ocean's Eleven rip off, it plays its action in this weird middle ground between gritty realism and bombastic gun fights.
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Cobbling together pieces of many a similar effort, London Has Fallen screenwriter turned first-time director Christian Gudegast must hope the audience won’t notice he’s borrowing so liberally from everything — from Heat and Point Break to The Usual Suspects and The Driver , actually.
The unusual deaths cause grizzled leather-clad ‘Big Nick’ (Gerard Butler, who’s borrowing Liam Neeson’s hair dye from Taken ) greater intentions to hunt down the elusive gang, using his own questionable methods to get results, borderline-illegal manoeuvres that are championed by his mostly anonymous group of supportive cop allies.