Den of Thieves

In Los Angeles, the bank-robbery capital of the world, cunning thieves plan a daring heist while a maverick detective and his crew ("the Regulators") keep them under surveillance. It's a familiar tale, not least for fans of Michael Mann's much-admired Heat, and if Gerard Butler's bad-ass cop and Pablo Schreiber's ex-special forces crook don't quite carry the gravitas of Pacino and De Niro, they both contribute strongly to a worthwhile, if not startlingly original, genre offering. Butler, in particular, seems to enjoy playing it a bit broader than his usual manly scowl, though the fascination here is the twin-track plotting which has the villains seemingly well ahead of the law as they conjure up a plausible way of breaking into LA's seemingly impregnable Federal Reserve. If you fancy a solid, old-fashioned crime picture, then director Christian Gudegast's feature debut delivers the action goods and gets the job done.