Den of Thieves will rob you of 140 minutes

Den of Thieves

Den of Thieves is a very particular type of heist movie. While most examples of the genre are content to merely show you a theft, this one wants to actually perpetrate one. It will soak you of two hours and 20 minutes of your time, delivered in small, unremarkable scenes. And no insurance policy in the world will ever reimburse you.

The opening is deceptively diverting, as Merriman (Pablo Schreiber) and his band of meticulous militiamen steal an armoured truck. Not the money inside, mind you — it’s empty and they know it. So why pilfer this particular, hard-to-boost vehicle? You may want to bring a corkboard, thumbtacks and string to keep track of the film’s wonky plot. Or you may decide you just don’t care.

This caper puts them on the radar of the L.A. Major Crimes Division — which, if I had my way, would be investigating the makers of this movie. The cop running the division is Nick Flanagan (Gerard Butler, whom you may not remember from Geostorm, a real stinker that was also the 72nd-highestgrossing film of 2017, just ahead of Monster Trucks).

Butler growls through the part, roughing up criminals to show what a badass he is, or pontificating in front of a giant corkboard of the type you were probably wise not to bring. Merriman is the big fish, but Nick’s bait of choice is Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a minor cog whom he never tires of shaking down. The bad guys include Levi, played by 50 Cent, whom I’ve never seen so inert; they got their money’s worth.

Den of Thieves is a first offence — sorry, directing debut — from Christian Gudegast, whose writing credits include a 20-per-cent stake in the Butler vehicle London Has Fallen. The man is a master of padding, stitching in go-nowhere subplots about Nick’s divorce and Levi’s daughter, all of which mean we’re 40 minutes into the movie before the real heist even begins to take shape.

Meanwhile, we’re treated to enough flaccid writing to fill a phone book — needless verbiage, endless repetition, senseless ... dramatic ... pauses, circular conversations, endless repetition. And those are the action scenes! By the time the shoot-em-up climax arrived, I no longer cared if Merriman’s team succeeded. I didn’t care if Flanagan caught them. I didn’t even care about his divorce. Instead, I was rooting for the audience, but it was too late; they’d already been had. ∂