For an Implausible Testosterone-Driven Alpha Bro Heist Fantasy ‘Den of Thieves’ Is Pretty OK

Expectations are everything in a movie like Den of Thieves. The film’s trailer is fortunately straightforward in placing your expectations where they belong—showing Den of Thieves for the type of movie it simply is: a testosterone-driven bro fantasy, complete with all its elements. Two crews face each other on opposite sides of the law, as the anti-hero rough-around-the-edges Special Crimes unit, reminiscent of Mackey’s Strike Team from The Shield, faces an ex-military group of heisters in the bank robbery capital of the world in Los Angeles. Special Crimes is led by Nick Flanagan, played by Gerard Bulter as the sleazy alcoholic whose morality lands on the “good guy” side of the film due to his badge. Opposite Flanagan is an ex-Marine known as Merrimen, played expertly by Pablo Schreiber as a no-nonsense hard ass with the mixture of brains and brawn of an elite soldier, a leader of men. Where Flanagan’s respective team of cops is a peripheral cast of undeveloped characters, Merrimen’s team includes Donnie, played by O’Shea Jackson Jr. who largely drives the early narrative in flashbacks of how he joined the team, and Levi Enson, played by a stoic 50 Cent.

The narrative skews more toward the perspective of the heisters, an understandable choice given the inherent elements of a heist film to which Den of Thieves hopes to pay homage. Still, the most questionable decision comes from Flanagan’s pseudo character development in the form of a fed-up wife, who predictably wants to le…