"Den of Thieves" (Guardian 02/02/18)

Den of Thieves **

Dir: Christian Gudegast. With: Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. 140 mins. Cert: 15

It’s been 23 years since Michael Mann’s landmark L.A. crime opus Heat alchemised pulp into gleaming screen spectacle, raising the possibility an entire generation has gone unaware of the symbiotic cops-and-robbers trope. Writer-director Christian Gudegast here leaps into that demographic gap with a film that falls somewhere between Mann fan art and an extended upgrade of those late-Nineties knock-offs with titles like City of Industry and Body Count. The script, co-credited to Prison Break mastermind Paul Scheuring, outlines yet another mirrored face-off. On one side, jacked and tatted outlaws – headed by Orange is the New Black’s Pablo Schreiber – who have the audacity to steal an empty armoured van for reasons initially unclear; opposite them, jacked and tatted detectives, headed by all-drinkin’, ever-smokin’ bad boy Gerard Butler, some indication of where we are in relation to the film’s obvious inspiration.

It has a few new angles (50 Cent uses Schreiber’s heavies to unsettle his daughter’s prom date), and some of its hand-me-downs remain eye-catching: the decision to shoot L.A. as a living, working environment isn’t remotely original, but appeals nevertheless. Other cribs – like Butler’s relationship with his soon-to-be-ex (Dawn Olivieri), a flat Xerox of Mann’s Pacino-Diane Venora business – yield chuckles, however, and the generally hopped-up, steroidal approach can be seen in an insistence that its antagonists coincide every quarter-hour, in sushi bars, firing ranges, even a shared lover’s parlour. Analogue in its effects, it’s the kind of throwback that may just win over videoshop nostalgists – though they’ll still have to plough through hunks of unleavened cliché, a dumb-as-nuts final flourish, and so much pec-flexing and armed alpha willy-waggling it often resembles a men’s rights bonding weekend more than it does a movie.

Den of Thieves opens in cinemas nationwide today.