DEN OF THIEVES 

The info, or rather statistics, imparted to the viewers in the beginning attempts to assure them that they are in for a thriller. We are told that Los Angeles is the bank robbery capital of the world – every 48 minutes there is a bank heist in the City of the Angels. The film opens to a gang of robbers hijacking an armoured truck parked outside a doughnut store. When amidst the shootout, Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler) of the Major Crimes Squad in the LA County Sheriff’s department takes over investigations, he quickly deduces from the mode of ambush that its mastermind would be Ray Merrimen (Pablo Scheiber), a hardened criminal just out of prison. And when the getaway driver Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) is captured, Nick closes in on Merrimen, who sets his sights on the seemingly impenetrable Federal Reserve Bank – walking into Fort Knox would probably have been much simpler.
As if the runtime of two-hours-plus wasn’t enough, debutant director Gudegast (who co-wrote the 2016 James Bond type action thriller ‘London Has Fallen’), justifies the motley supporting cast by introducing needless subplots – Nick’s marital problems being the more extended one. This subplot clearly dilutes the pace of the film, besides deviating from the main genre of the film. It is Nick’s character which is intricately fleshed out: heavily tattooed, pub-hopping and not averse to taking a stripper home.
While the film suffers mainly on account of its length, the action sequences cannot be faulted, although the denouement could be termed as highly exaggerated. Strictly for fans of the bank heist genre.