Den of Thieves

Going in: no expectations other than some action and some story. See it, rent it. 6/10.

Popcorn Score: 6/10. No surprises here. It was entertaining enough. Some good parts, some not so good parts.

Art Score: 7/10. This movie had some good points, but there were some that left me dissatisfied.

Acting: 2/3. The acting was okay. I'm not a huge Gerard Butler fan, but I don't mind him either. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Pablo Schreiber. If there was more of then in there, I would have said 3/3. I enjoyed Butler just fine, but it was a bit too much and over the top (which honestly was the character but just didn't do anything for me).

Music: 1/2. The music is pretty invisible here. But it was so invisible I almost think that was the point. If so (and I'm giving the benefit of the doubt), it's a solid 2.

Cinematography: 2/2. I always look for a moment where the director says "Eh, just go nuts and do whatever." There were some city shots that were really good. Several. And all in the city. I was impressed.

Art/CGI/Costume/Makeup: 1/2. Nothing spectacular here. It wasn't bad, just not amazing.

Editing: 1/2. I was going to give this a 2 because there was one scene where in the heat of battle the sound slows down but not the visuals. It was just enough to say "I'm here." But the titles at the beginning confused me. I couldn't tell if they were people or places. I'm not from LA so I assumed they were places. But then they were people. And sometimes places.

Story: 3/4. This was hard. There's an element of the story that was well done. I don't want to go into spoiler territory. But there were some things that just weren't done enough. There's a whole subplot with the character's family and how, while he's losing everything, the bad guys seem to have it all. But there's no resolution to those moments. They had a thematic purpose but were discarded. I wouldn't have minded a bad or empty resolution. But there was just none. The subplots fell off the map.

Directing: 2/3. There were some really cool moments, but some mistakes that just took it away. It wasn't just okay, it was simultaneously good and bad. Huh, that's kind of the character so maybe they did the whole thing on purpose. But I don't think so.

Production: 1/2. It was a good story to tell, but I'm just not sure it was the right team.