Brace yourself for Butler’s action-packed show
Die-hard Gerard Butler fans will like this passable crime thriller which opens with an armoured truck robbery which results in several casualties. Such a shame since the truck contained no money at all. But why would a gang of robbers want to hijack an empty truck? Ah ha. why would cops and robbers eat in the same restaurant, practice at the same firing range and share ladies of the night? Uh huh.
As the co-written Christian Gudegast/Paul Scheuring screenplay tells it, a robber (Merrimen played by Pablo Schreiber) even rues the cop killing and spares a hostage in a heist. (I could
predict that, though the cops didn’t.
Your reviewer also felt sorry for the thief who prefers death to jail. Do note, gentle reader, this is not to be confused with the jihadi fondness for death. Nothing heroic about a death cult, I say. Our reel hero, an LAPD detective (Gerard Butler, hot) who answers to the name of “Big Nick” Flanagan, has domestic issues – marital discord to be specific – which would have been sorted out with Marriage Counselling.
Anyway, Debbie (Dawn Olivieri) Nick’s aggrieved wife, leaves home and hearth in a huff with their lovely daughters and soon finds solace in the company of another in the city of Angels, which viewers are informed, right at the very beginning, is the bank robbery capital of the world (44 robberies a week!) Here, working out of a hideaway tucked inside what seems to be a dystopian industrial maze, Merryman and his band of not so merry men work out an audacious plan to “withdraw” $30 million in cash. Their driver, Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) may or may not be a double agent. Actually, he is a... okay, no spoilers.