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The Rewatchables ·

Den of Thieves

year 2018decade 10sdirector Christian Gudegastgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Shea Serranohost Chris Ryan
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 22:57

The Benihana scene

The movie is centered on about five rewatchable scenes that bleed into each other, and the last hour and fifteen minutes is one action piece divided into three; one first pick is everything from the Hofbrau introduction through Nick and the LASD clique bracing Donnie in the hotel room.

The case for the opening donut-shop robbery is the eeriness of LA at three or four in the morning once you leave Hollywood for Hawthorne and the side towns off the 10 and the 5, when the traffic is gone and the streets are empty, even if wetting down the streets is a liberty.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:22:55

"We're cop killers now"

The nominees are the cop-killers line, Nick telling his ex-wife's new boyfriend to give him a hug and save a fortune on therapy, and Merriman's family-here, popping-off speech from Benihana, performed standing up; dates would have worked better than family, though 50's wife is at the table.

The film

Den of Thieves (2018)

Directed by Christian Gudegast · Action crime

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Gerard Butler Nick O’Brien
Pablo Schreiber Ray Merrimen
O’Shea Jackson Jr. Donnie Wilson
50 Cent Enson Levoux
Maurice Compte Benny Borracho Magalon
Brian Van Holt Murph Connors
Evan Jones Bo Bosco Ostroman
Mo McRae Gus Henderson
Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau Tony Zapata
Dawn Olivieri Debbie O’Brien
Eric Braeden Ziggy Zerhusen
Lewis Tan Federal Reserve Police Lobby Guard #1
Jermaine Rivers Officer Jackson
Jay Dobyns Rolph Wolfgang
Alix Lapri Maloa
Nick Loeb Rudd

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

22:57

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Benihana scene

The Benihana scene

In the discussion (20)
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:57Read transcript
  • The movie is centered on about five rewatchable scenes that bleed into each other, and the last hour and fifteen minutes is one action piece divided into three; one first pick is everything from the Hofbrau introduction through Nick and the LASD clique bracing Donnie in the hotel room.
  • The case for the opening donut-shop robbery is the eeriness of LA at three or four in the morning once you leave Hollywood for Hawthorne and the side towns off the 10 and the 5, when the traffic is gone and the streets are empty, even if wetting down the streets is a liberty.
  • The guy in the back of the armored truck has the worst job and always gets blown up; the crew goes straight for the cops and kills the first two in two seconds, which sets a tone unlike Heat, where the crew only fires back at cops as a last resort.
  • The scene extends to the garage afterward, where the zoom on Pablo staring into the empty truck and the cop-killers line lay the stakes bare: thirty million richer or dead; Butler's entrance eating the donut, the hot-zone exchange and the pain-in-the-ass FBI agent giving him grief, plus the palm-juice piss-test detail, are also loved.
  • Whether the drill-the-hole, insert-and-open trick on the truck window is a nod to the umbrella trick in the fifties French heist film Rafifi (as transcribed), alongside the obvious Heat hat tips, is raised as a question.
  • The Hofbrau and the hotel room are where the movie jumps a level: Donnie's plea that he is only a driver, the tasing, the weird hotel with indoor smoking, ladies of the night and chicken tenders, and Nick pointing at his regulators to explain that the clique owns him; catching Donnie this early rather than midway is a different play.
  • Donnie's story of meeting Merriman at the backyard barbecue, Merriman eating skirt steak with nothing else, the Dasani everywhere, the silver dollar pancakes pause, and the genre's tradition of people eating unhappily outdoors are enjoyed; Nick's ex-wife's dinner party is the only happy meal in the film.
  • 50 Cent's prom-date scene, tucking in the blood handkerchief and leading the kid into the garage to meet the entire Long Beach Poly offensive line plus Pablo Schreiber and the Samoan guys, is played perfectly.
  • The Benihana scene is one host's favorite scene in the movie; the idea is the Heat move of letting the other crew know you are on to them and applying pressure, and the guess is that ten straight takes were shot before Butler asked to do one completely insane take, which is the one they used.
  • Benihana nitpicks are part of its rewatch appeal: Nick blows Donnie's cover immediately, and in real life a crew that killed four cops would have the city locked down rather than being followed to dinner, though the cops have no evidence and want to kill rather than arrest them.
  • Whether this is the best Benihana scene of all time is asked; Benihana is an underused location with the shared table and the knives, and the dream version has Big Nick and Merriman squeezed in beside a family of civilians.
  • How Merriman's crew set up an entire murder tent in the garage with plastic and a vat of acid between leaving Benihana and getting back is a lingering question, answered with the joke that a four-letter text to Jeff Chow at the Ringer gets the same thing set up in the spare office.
  • Merriman standing up at the table with the family-here, popping-off line, shot so he looks eighteen feet tall with his chin out and chest tattoos, is a comic-book trick; the revelation that he is Liev Schreiber's half-brother leads to the joke of drafting him too.
  • The men's suit store meeting is called possibly the greatest scene in American cinema history: cops who are regulars in a lounge at a shop selling leather jackets, cowboy boots and remaindered suits, Butler buying an out-of-style half-duster leather jacket and drinking coffee from porcelain, and Donnie openly meeting them in public, compared to the Hamburger Hamlet emergency meeting in Entourage.
  • The personal-life interlude that follows the suit store is too much, the same problem as Heat, although Heat's relationships are detailed enough not to feel like a waste while the ex-wife here has no personality; Natalie Portman could be cut from Heat, a debate saved for the hundredth episode.
  • The locked-and-loaded scene is a high-level version of the action-movie staple, with Gus's visualization techniques and Pablo Schreiber's rifle lesson to Donnie played as a clip; the crew carries thousands of bullets and still runs out.
  • The three final robberies are the Pico Savings and Loan fake hostage situation, which one host found a mail-in that needed a more frightened bank manager, the long and elaborate Federal Reserve heist, and the highway shootout; the Chinese food sitting in the ceiling for a week is flagged as a nitpick.
  • The Kaiser Soze reveal at the end does not need rewatching once you have it, though O'Shea Jackson's English accent is loved; the guess is that the original script was Merriman versus Nick and the Donnie plot was expanded so the last two scenes set up a sequel.
  • Two go with Benihana as the one to stop channel-flipping for; the third has two answers, the shooting range standoff on a first viewing and, after five or six viewings, the hotel room interview where Donnie's little traps and the director's traps for the audience become visible, which also shows O'Shea Jackson is a gifted actor and a movie star.
  • Earlier the Benihana scene is called incredible despite making no sense, and any scene set in Ziggy's Hofbrau would do.
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48:54

What’s Aged the Best?

The shooting range standoff; Pablo Schreiber's performance; Gerard Butler's performance; the cop names Borracho, Murp...

The shooting range standoff; Pablo Schreiber's performance; Gerard Butler's performance; the cop names Borracho, Murph, Tony Z and Gus; the name Merriman; O'Shea Jackson's arrival; 50 Cent's performance; Pablo Schreiber's chin; the double-date dinner scene

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:54Read transcript
  • The shooting range, where Merriman unleashes forty bullets in a row and Butler shoots back looking impressed, is their version of the Heat diner scene without any talking.
  • Schreiber carries his body like an ex-athlete and ex-military man; he was in The Wire season two and Emmy-nominated for Orange Is the New Black yet reads as three different people with the same face, his six-foot-five height may hold him back next to five-foot-eight stars, and the training from 13 Hours shows here.
  • If Vin Diesel never existed, the first backup pick for Dom Toretto would be Pablo Schreiber, who could do the backyard familia scenes The Rock cannot; four inches shorter he would be Henry Cavill, and he should be the bad guy who joins the gang in a later Fast and Furious.
  • Butler based the performance heavily on Gene Hackman in French Connection; it is unlike anything else in his career, and he is compared to Devin Booker, a talent who never quite became the top-tier lister the rom-coms sold him as, never getting a Gladiator or Beautiful Mind, though he has the Has Fallen franchise and this is his LA Confidential.
  • The cop names Borracho, Murph, Tony Z and Gus are great; Merriman is a great name because he is the worst hang of all time, and the host keeps thinking of the football player Sean Merriman.
  • O'Shea Jackson's arrival as someone who will be in movies for a long time has aged well.
  • 50 Cent is very good at playing the one guy with the volume turned down, giving everything gravity, and never seems to mourn his wife and daughter before the highway shootout; the pushback is that Val Kilmer does more with the same quiet-partner role in Heat, and Ray Lewis or Ed Reed are imagined as stunt casting, while Idris Elba is too famous and flipping Mo McCray with 50 would be worse because of body types.
  • Pablo's chin is a neat trick: a street fighter either tucks the chin or puts it out daring you to hit it, and Merriman is the guy who always puts it out, which fits his all-in ending.
  • The double-date dinner scene unapologetically rips off Pacino taking his TV back in Heat and is ludicrous, with no clear motivation for Nick going there or for the wife dating so fast.
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58:14

What’s Aged the Worst?

Nick's personal-life scenes on repeat viewings; the stalled-traffic highway shootout plan; the unexplained Big Nick n...

Nick's personal-life scenes on repeat viewings; the stalled-traffic highway shootout plan; the unexplained Big Nick nickname; the shots that are obviously Atlanta rather than LA

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:14Read transcript
  • Nick's five-something-in-the-morning text to his wife, with its odd capitalization, is exactly how Big Nick would text; she is entitled to date as fast as she likes, and he shows up at the dinner because he sets fire to everything he touches.
  • Nick's personal life on repeat viewings is the thing that has aged worst, since he could simply have been served papers; a joke imagines his daughters dancing eleven years from now at the club he still frequents.
  • The crew would have had a better plan at the end than fighting in stalled traffic; the offered explanation is that Donnie planned the whole heist and Merriman is never shown doing anything smart, so once Donnie is out of the picture everything falls apart.
  • Donnie anticipates being picked up and carries a handcuff pick; common sense would be ramming the cars and leaving rather than a shootout among 130 cars, though telling the civilians to get behind an engine block is a cool detail.
  • Why he is called Big Nick is never explained; he is six foot two, and a quick nod to a South Torrance nickname would have done it.
  • Some scenes are obviously Atlanta, a complaint only an LA nerd would make, that now bothers one host who never noticed before; another host has nothing at all for what has aged worst.
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1:10:04

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Evan Jones (Bosco)

Evan Jones (Bosco)

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:04Read transcript
  • The one nominee and winner is Bosco, Evan Jones, the little guy with the weird face in Merriman's crew.
  • Other candidates are Borracho and Murph, who is Brian Van Holt from Cougar Town, Breaking Bad and Big Evil in End of Watch; the movie has thirty that guys.
  • The security guard who eyeballs O'Shea on both deliveries, with no lines but constant tension that he might reach for his gun, is a preemptive that guy.
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1:10:51

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Gerard Butler

Gerard Butler

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:51Read transcript
  • It is Gerard Butler's entire performance from start to finish; the better question is his peak Saul Rubinick (as transcribed) moment, which is his first scene with the FBI agent, played as a clip, where he is on ten immediately and interrupts the agent's insult with a hey-what's-up-with-that.
  • Overacting here does not mean bad: he was dialing it up and it was exactly what was wanted.
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1:12:23

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Marcus, the big Hawaiian member of Merriman's crew

Marcus, the big Hawaiian member of Merriman's crew

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:23Read transcript
  • Part of what makes the movie rewatchable is that everyone plays their part; Bosco, Gus and Borracho never go over the top to steal scenes.
  • The suggestion is the big Hawaiian guy who talks, Marcus, a low-usage-rate player who asks why they cannot just cut loose and is intimidating in the garage scene when he starts speaking another language.
  • Details noticed only after many viewings: two small children are in the garage scene, one postured up like he is ready to fight, and the major crimes office has a bench press in the back, which Russo would appreciate.
  • Bosco's femoral-artery moment at the opening crime scene is liked; what the cops did with the dead robber is recalled as the start of connecting the 2005 and 2006 robberies, the ten-year bids and the new wave.
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1:15:24

Apex Mountain

Pablo Schreiber; Benihana movie scenes; heist movies that rip off Heat

Pablo Schreiber; Benihana movie scenes; heist movies that rip off Heat

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:24Read transcript
  • One host calls this Butler's apex one hundred percent, with the movie living on Showtime for a hundred years; the others argue 300 was a bigger cultural moment even though it ended and people are done with it.
  • It is not 50 Cent's apex, which would be Get Rich or Die Trying rather than a comparison to Ballers.
  • Pablo Schreiber is a yes, at least right now, although a bigger career is predicted for him, and the Dom Toretto suggestion went unpunished.
  • Hawthorne gets a no because the film is not really Hawthorne; Long Beach Poly football is weighed against Deshaun Jackson (as transcribed) playing there.
  • Benihana movie scenes are a yes, with Rocky Aoki and the Benihana episode of The Office beneath it.
  • Heist movies that rip off Heat are a yes, though one host counters that Dark Knight is the most popular Heat ripoff; this one ends with Butler doing the Pacino and De Niro hand thing despite the two never having a connection beyond shooting side by side at the range.
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1:23:56

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

A 10-episode Netflix series with the Donnie reveal moved to episode two or three; a 10-episode prequel following Lave...

A 10-episode Netflix series with the Donnie reveal moved to episode two or three; a 10-episode prequel following Laveau and Merriman out of the military; a Merriman-in-prison show; an episode at the Benihana

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:23:56Read transcript
  • A ten-episode Netflix version works if the hotel room reveal of Donnie moves to the second or third episode; the sequel could have gone to Netflix for the big payday.
  • A prequel with Laveau and Merriman in the military and doing their first robberies before the taillight arrest, a Merriman-in-prison show with Pablo puffed out, and an episode on the Benihana staff are all wanted.
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1:27:26

Who Won the Movie?

Pablo Schreiber

Pablo Schreiber

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:27:26Read transcript
  • Schreiber takes it from two of three because the movie feels real through him, even though Butler is incredible; the third calls Schreiber the too-cool-for-school alternative pick and gets accused of being testy when not hosting.
  • The Butler case: the text that got the holdout to watch was about Butler going for it, nobody else could be sixty to ninety percent as good in the role, Nick Cage and Russell Crowe have sailed, and it is a 98-to-97 call remembered as the Butler movie where he finally came through.
  • Analogies close it out: Butler as Devin Booker at thirty-four finally reaching the conference finals versus Schreiber as LeBron James against Detroit, called one of the great Latino actor moments of all time.
Podcast choices
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Pablo Schreiber
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Pablo Schreiber
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