‘Den of Thieves‘ belongs to the category of action movies that I like for two reasons: it’s well done and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. From the first scene to the end, the film with which Christian Gudegast made his debut as a feature film director in 2018 claims to be nothing more than a description of the fight between a gang of bank robbers planning a seemingly impossible coup and a group of police officers who use unconventional methods to catch them and if possible to prevent their next blow. Despite the over 2 hours and 20 minutes of screening ‘Den of Thieves’ did not seem to me too long, nor artificially prolonged. What’s the secret?
Christian Gudegast is a native of Los Angeles, knows its streets, neighborhoods, highways, harbor, clubs and dark alleys. His passion for the city is visible in the way he films and frames his heroes. Unlike traditional heist movies in which we follow the careful planning of a robbery in one of the apparently best guarded places in the world (here the Federal Reserve Bank) in ‘Den of Thieves’ the gang of criminals is not composed of elegant gentlemen but of violent and well-organized criminals, combining indifference for the lives of others with the mastery of digital technology that nowadays joins or even takes the place of massive padlocks and impregnable steel walls in protecting banks. But Gudegast is also a good connoisseur of the human mosaic that populates the city, so both the bad guys and the good guys looks real and genuine on screen. If Michael Mann‘s ‘Heat‘ is the model for films with cops and criminals set in the City of Angels, by comparison, ‘Den of Thieves’ is less stylish but more credible.
The main roles feature three actors who play their anti-heroes with skill. Gerard Butler is O’Brien, a cynical and vicious cop. His private life is falling apart and we can only wonder that his family lasted so long, probably waiting for the divorce to take place in the film. He is opposed by Pablo Schreiber as the leader of the gang of gangsters, and although the role does not leave him much room for nuance, one can guess the talent of an actor who deserves to be watched. The most interesting role is perhaps that of the night bartender and day driver of the thieves, forced to collaborate with the police, in which O’Shea Jackson Jr. shows that he is blessed, like his father with both musical and actor talents. The action is well paced and the intrigue reserves for the end a surprise that I did not anticipate. The shooting duels are edited and choreographed well, despite an excess of arsenal that occasions by the end one of the few moments when the story seems less credible. ‘Den of Thieves’ is a well-made action film. No more, no less. Which is a lot.