Movie Details
| Title: | Den of Thieves | |
| Director: | Christian Gudegast | |
| Year: | 2018 | |
| Genre: | Crime | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 03.08.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 03.08.23 | Internet | I believe this hit my radar via Joe Dante's podcast where his co-host Josh Olsen seems to love pulp crime movies. I don't really remember anything about the recommendation so I went in knowing Gerard Butler was in it and that it was maybe a thriller. It's no secret i love the movie Heat. Throughout the years, I'd watch Heat and think "man, why aren't there more movies like this?" Then eventually Michael Mann wrote Heat 2 as a novel and I really liked it, but the idea of him making that book into a novel I don't like, for various reasons mentioned in my notes on the book. But except for that, I never really saw a movie blatantly trying to follow the Heat formula. Until now! Now that I've seen this, I understand why nobody's tried to do a movie like Heat: it's hard and it won't be as good as Heat! I liked this movie alright but Gerard Butler is no Al Pacino! And Pablo Schreiber is no Robert De Niro! This is like a b-list version of Heat except the writer-director's trying to be cute so he's throwing every movie into the blender. Some scenes it's a heist movie, other scenes are from The Shield. One scene's from Bad Boys 2, but I think mostly scenes are from Heat. Now... all that being said... a low-rent version of Heat can still have its moments. Yes it's like a half hour too long and all the Gerard Butlers scenes are pretty terrible, the pacing is WAY off, and there are some downright bizarre scenes trying to be the scene where Pacino and De Niro sit down in the diner booth (one-upping each other at the shooting range is corny but the scene where I guess Butler targets Schreiber's wife at the strip club? like she wouldn't remember him badgering her at the hibachi grill? Like he's gonna fuck the information out of her or something? what?). But also, I've always liked Pablo Schreiber (Nicky Sabotka in the house) and the competing crews are kinda fun (not as fun as the Heat crews, but still kinda fun) and while the action scenes are flat and lack momentum, they're also still kinda cool. I guess I'm trying to say that I was never bored. Yes it's a knock-off film but it's still kinda fun to watch and I mean, there really are no other movies like Heat so having another one around, even though it's not as good, is still something. |
