Warning: Spoilers for Army of the Dead.
Army of Thieves is a mostly, stand-alone prequel to Army of the Dead which was released earlier this year. It’s the next step in Netflix’s attempt to jumpstart a new cinematic universe helmed by director and producer Zack Snyder. Though it may be working so far, this new franchise has to either improve in its storytelling or its overall quality to stand out from the other generic Hollywood films that it seems to be trying to replicate. Army of the Dead with zombie films and Army of Thieves with heist films.
The film follows Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), though he goes by Sebastien at the start of the film, as he grows bored with his repetitive, everyday life, wishing to put his love of lock picking and safecracking to use. When he’s approached by a mysterious woman named Gwen (Nathalie Emmanuel), he’s presented with the opportunity to leave that boring life behind and join a team of experienced bank robbers. Dieter chooses to join the team who subsequently embarks on a globetrotting series of heists to crack three legendary vaults and secure its spot in history.
While all that may sound interesting, it’s certainly not original. Army of Thieves is certainly better than its predecessor from earlier this year, but it can’t help but be weighed down by it and feel especially generic in its own right. The film feels like it was made by committee instead of with one singular vision. That doesn’t seem to be the case, as the story was thought up by Zack Snyder and Shay Hatten, with the actual screenplay being written by Hatten. The film was also directed by its star, Mattias Schweighöfer, though he was certainly channeling his inner Zack Snyder, as it feels like one of his films through and through, aside from one area.
The action scenes, while incredibly brief and not taking up much of the runtime, are shot much differently from Snyder’s usual style, being unnecessarily cut to shreds and shaky beyond belief. This may be to hide poor stunt work or fight choreography, but it’s pretty terrible-looking and hard to follow either way. It’s the one thing I can give Army of the Dead over this film, as that one’s action is just shot and edited together much more clearly and coherently.
This film could’ve been better if given more time for another draft of the script. The humor doesn’t work at all, despite the film wanting to be classified as an action-comedy. Some of the characters’ motivations are completely underdeveloped and sometimes incoherent, especially those of Korrina (Ruby O. Fee), the hacker of the group, and Rolph (Guz Khan), the group’s getaway driver.
The film kind of falls apart in the third act, with a lackluster finale, despite the film’s constant claims that each heist will ratchet up in intensity and difficulty, which only seems to happen with the second heist. The other two heists are cakewalks for the group, despite the fact they’re supposed to be some of the hardest in the world to pull off. The final heist just seems like a concept left on the cutting room floor of a film from the Ocean’s franchise. Even when the film is trying to pull a switcheroo on the audience, it can’t help but feel predictable and like you’ve seen it a hundred times in better films.
I may be ragging on Army of Thieves quite a bit, but it’s not a bad film, just a very generic one. Even writing this right now, I’m struggling to tell you the names of the characters or what even happened in this film. It’s just not memorable or interesting in any meaningful way. This isn’t helped by the fact that Dieter dies off-screen in the film, so this film feels completely pointless and lacks any and all tension because of it.
The audience knows he can’t die or be caught because he has to appear in a film that takes place shortly after this one. It tries to add tension by adding the other characters of the group, but I didn’t care about any of them, except one, because the film does a bad job at making them interesting or likable; there’s just nothing to latch onto there.
Despite all of this, the film is still an enjoyable, if forgettable, watch. Schweighöfer does a good job as Dieter, but he can sometimes get annoying with his screams and little eccentricities. Nathalie Emmanuel is easily the best part of the film, making most of the scenes she appears in watchable because the rest of the cast just doesn’t do a very good job. They’re either over the top in all the worst ways or they’re wooden, there’s no in-between. Even if that’s the style the film was going for, it doesn’t come off that way.
Army of Thieves is a generic film, but it’s still a good option to throw on in the background or if you just want to turn your brain off for two hours. Netflix has been continuously investing in films like this, and I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it. They’re putting hundreds of millions of dollars into films that have nothing special about them and purely serve to add more content to the service, no matter the cost. It seems to be working now, but I can only wonder how long before these gambles stop paying off.
