Weirdly, I thought Den Of Thieves had great potential as one of those testosterone-filled cops versus thieves movie.
Testosterone they had plenty of. Both sides had a cast that just looked like a big, hotdog fest led by Gerard Butler and Pablo Schreiber. And both of them portrayed their characters very well - I never doubted Schreiber as he still has to prove himself and far from being an A-lister.
But I haven't seen Butler deliver some acting in a while now. His recent movies had all been with similar kind of character, but here the "tough guy" act has been amplified.
O'Shea Jackson, Jr. was actually the weakest link. We last saw him in Straight Outta Compton where he just played his dad. Here he had to be in an action movie and he did not fare well. He was very expressionless a lot of the times and it was frustrating to see him act.
Lewis Tan from Deadpool 2 fame also had a small role in this one, and I am looking forward to seeing him more in movies.
The storyline had a couple of good plot points. I am always intrigued by this type cop story where they would cross the line just because they choose to. But somewhere in the middle I got really lost with the plot. There was a scene where Schreiber and Butler suddenly met and I got so thrown off as to whether they actually knew each other beforehand.
That was where Christian Gudegast's directing just came crashing down even though it finished off well at the end. He also introduced too much of the family subplot which I did not care much for, and it took out too much of a chunk; though it did give another layer to Butler's character albeit unnecessary.
There definitely was some fun to be had with this film. But again, it is one of those that I am glad I did not have to pay money to watch in a cinema.
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