#14 DEN OF THIEVES

Starring Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, O'Shear Jackson Jnr., Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. Written and directed by Ghristina Gudegast. Budget $30 million. Running time 140 minutes. 15 certificate.

It's been 23 years since Michael Mann's superb Heat starring Robert Deniro and Al Pacino and therefore ripe for a not so subtle remake under a different name and lo we have Den of Thieves, a film that's Heat but without the stella cast, the superb music and the excellent direction, but with a healthy sprinkling of The Usual Suspects (also 23 years old!) just to, you know mix shit up a bit.

Den of Thieves sees a group of professional bank robbers lead by Pablo Schreiber going up against a gang of professional bank robber busters led by Gerard Butler as both sides clash over a plan to rob the Federal Reserve Bank. This follows the template of Heat very closely, and includes a running street gun battle, several meticulously planned mini heists and lots of scenes of both sets of Alpha Males bounding and doing their thang at home and at work. It also has a failing marriage. Both hard men, Pablo and Gerard, dance around each other getting closer and closer as the film gets closer and closer to its climax when at the very end, instead of a gun battle, both men declare their love for each other and give up their violent ways to live on an Alpaca farm in Peru. Nah, they just shot holes into each other until one of them dies, but not before they've had time to explain their warrior code to each other and there's a grudging respect for the code of each other. Blah blah blah.

It's far too long, it could easily have been a good twenty minutes shorter if the unnecessary sub plot about Butler's Alpha Male's marriage crumbling had been dropped, cause as good as he is in action role, he's stretched to breaking point trying to play a crap husband dealing with a divorce.

The action and robberies are exciting, but the Alpha male posturing gets old PDQ, and the attempts at domestic depth are clumsy and laughable. The third act Usual Suspects twist is a surprising touch and gives the film a little boost but by that point, we're all a bit exhausted by sheer testosterone that drips off the screen.

6/10