Den of Thieves give me just that, and surprisingly a couple chuckles as well (whether they were intentional or not). But sometimes all I want is to enjoy some well-shot and heart pumping action sequences with some inconsequential thrills along the way. In fact, it's mostly a beat for beat remake of Heat, with De Niro & Pacino. It doesn't have a ton of levels of direction, acting, or writing. And for a January release, I'd say that's an accomplishment. However, Den of Thieves proved to be a film that will take more than a day or two to forget. It's not like I'm seeking out every Gerard Butler movie out there anyway. I admittedly had not even heard of Den of Thieves before a month or so ago.

This is the kind of movie where expectations work in favor of the final product as all of the promotional material for this thing would point to it being nothing more than a direct-to-Redbox dumpster fire, but when it turns out to be something even slightly resembling a thoughtful, weighty, and often times thrilling action/drama Den of Thieves rises to be a satisfying if not slightly indulgent trip to the cinema.

Both a crime drama and heist film, Den of Thieves does what it sets out to do well even if Gerard Butler looks like he's about to have a heart attack at any given moment and poses no real threat to Pablo Schreiber's more imposing and charismatic Merrimen who leads the titular thieves in what is a more labored and methodical plot than one might initially give such a movie as Den of Thieves credit for. One can feel the ambition of writer/director Christian Gudegast (in his directorial debut) seeping through his extravagant and admittedly enthralling screenplay that intends to put a million things in motion only to be utilized as ideas around the repercussions of the movie's main throughline. Admirable is a word one might use to describe Den of Thieves.

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