DEN OF THIEVES: GOOD BUT DOESN’T BRING ON THE HEAT

I love a good heist movie. There’ve been some classics in the genre. THE ITALIAN JOB and OCEAN’S ELEVEN stand out in my memory. So when I heard a new heist film was out called DEN OF THIEVES starring Gerard Butler I was in. Sad to say it didn’t live up to my expectations though.

The movie opens with an armored car robbery that goes awry. A guard is shot and killed, not something Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) the master planner had in mind. A shootout follows but the team escapes and he later reprimands the weak member of his team for not following orders.

The next day Det. Nick O'Brien (Butler) arrives to investigate the case. He and his team of elite no-nonsense officers have been tracking Merrimen for a while now. Through various leads and questionable methods of interrogation they begin to think they may have an idea of what the big heist is going to be. They just need to fill in the details.

As all of this is going along we also get a glimpse of O’Brien’s home life. Like most police in movies like this his marriage is a shambles. He’s also finding it difficult to spend quality time with his child. The end result is his wife leaving and moving in with her sister while filing for divorce.

The day of the heist arrives and O’Brien and his team have staked out the bank they know Merrimen is going to hit. Hit it he does taking those inside the bank hostage and threatening to kill them if he doesn’t get money and a helicopter out of the bank. Stalling for time O’Brien and his team placate Merrimen. Until they realize something just isn’t right.

SPOILER ALERT: This is when the movie gets good. We discover that the bank job was cover for a much larger plan, stealing used bills intended for destruction at the nearby Federal Reserve. As the job is going down O’Brien and his team realize what’s happening and race to the scene to take down Merrimen and his team.

The film ends with a major chase and shootout taking up most of the last hour of the film. It’s a tense struggle and not everyone will come out alive. But the movie doesn’t end there. And that is the best part about the movie, the end. So if you decide to watch it keep in mind it’s not over until the credits roll.

So what’s good about the movie? It has an involved plot that needs paid attention to to be followed. The story here of the elite commando type team of criminals facing off against the best of the best of the police works well. And to make things a bit different the criminals are more inclined appear the more elite team than the police. The police are the gruff looking tough talking types some movies have gone towards.

This takes us to the bad. The language used by Butler here actually becomes distracting after a while rather than help form his character. He’s not a character we care much about. There isn’t a sympathetic character to associate yourself with. The criminals are willing to kill anyone who gets in their way. The police squad comes off as unruly, undisciplined in certain circumstances and just plain mean. Who do you root for?

Then there’s the length of the film. There’s no reason for this film to last nearly two and a half hours. It’s not that epic of a story. Plenty of scenes could have been trimmed to bring the movie down to even two hours. If film directors in the 30s and 40s could make a decent film and tell an entire story in under 80 minutes why do today’s directors feel the need to expand the length of a film for no reason?

While watching this film I kept thinking back to the movie HEAT from 1995 starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. That movie lasted nearly three hours and didn’t feel near as long as this one did. I was thinking that the director here felt he was making a monumental epic in the tradition of that film. If that was the case he failed miserably. The movie is entertaining enough for a single viewing but nothing that I would make myself sit through again or add to my collection. It’s simply there.

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IN THE FADE: HOME GROWN TERRORISTS

Let me start off by saying this film is not about terrorists striking here in the US but about home grown terrorist in Germany, specifically Hamburg. It is there that Katja (Diane Kruger) is married to Kurdish immigrant Nuri Sekerci (Numan Acar). The pair also have a 5 year old son named Rocco. Nuri runs a business that helps new immigrants translate various documents to help them and one day Katja drops off their son there while she visits with one of her friends. As she leaves she bumps into a young woman who left her bike nearby unchained.

As she returns home that evening she finds the road she takes past the office blocked off and flashing police lights illuminating the buildings. Stopping she gets out of the car and runs to find the office building blown apart. Someone has exploded a bomb outside and both Nuri and Rocco were instantly killed.

Katja is torn by the event and is doing all she can not to lose control. Her friend and parents come to stay with her and keep an eye on her. Going out one night she contacts her friend and lawyer and he provides her with drugs she takes to deal with her inner pain, drugs one of his clients left. The lawyer worked for both her and Nuri, helping when years before when Nuri was a drug dealer. Having a child changed all that and Nuri and Katja had remained clean for years.

She tells the police all about the girl she saw and the investigation moves forward. But rather than dig for the truth the police seem more focused on Nuri as an immigrant and potential terrorists himself. Noting his past record they check the house out and find her drugs but the officer in charge lets her off the hook. Still, their focus remains on Islamic terrorists ignoring the description of the girl she gave them. Until someone else gives her up.

It turns out the pair responsible for the bombing were neo-Nazis, André (Ulrich Brandhoff) and Edda Möller (Hanna Hilsdorf). With evidence in hand the prosecutor charges them and the trial proceeds. This becomes a fascinating part of the film showing how differently the cases are handled there than here. Each day Katja must face the discussion of the deaths of her loved ones, certain in her own mind that these were the two that destroyed her family.

The question rises as the trial progresses just how far the defense is willing to go. All of the past is brought up to steer the focus away from the defendants. The defense also makes an attempt at discounting the evidence that was found in the home of André’s father, the man responsible for calling in the police and leading to their arrest. It isn’t certain whether this line of defense will play out in favor of the defendants or in favor of Katja. But finding justice and finding revenge are two different things to consider.

The movie is well made and acted with Kruger turning in yet another great performance. She is center stage here from start to finish, the entire film revolving are her character. This is a complex character not prone to hysterics all the time but unraveling due to her circumstances as the film progresses. Kruger makes her believable and the pain she releases is tangible at times.

The movie is definitely a depressing tale to follow and it moves along with ups and downs as it moves forward. And while Kruger does a tremendous job I felt it difficult to get involved too deep with the character and her predicament. Still it was an interesting film to watch and worth taking a look at.

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NURSE SHERRI: POSSESSED RN

In 1978 the drive-ins were still the best place to find horror films. Always treated like the red headed step child they were the bread and butter for those passion pits across the country. The movies that played there ranged from mainstream films to low budget flicks but the low budget horror film seemed to fill those outdoor screens on a regular basis.

With the success of THE EXORCIST and CARRIE it wasn’t long before bits and pieces of both were used in some of these films. NURSE SHERRI used plot points from the first and ad images from the second. The end result is a movie that isn’t all that great and doesn’t quite make the “so bad it’s good” ranks. But it does come close and is a part of drive-in history so I was glad to see it given this new treatment by Vinegar Syndrome.

The story involves a cult leader named Reanhauer (Bill Roy) whose small group listens to him as he tells them one of their number recently deceased will be raised from the dead if they only have faith. While the tone here seems to draw connections to the occult it’s never quite stated for sure that this is a devil worshipping cult or not. Needless to say the leader’s promises of rising the now rotting corpse fall through and during a last ditch effort to pull it off he has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital.

He dies on the operating table but not before he has the chance to pass his soul off onto Nurse Sherri (Jill Jacobson). Lying in bed we watch as a green glowing blob makes its way beneath her door and wraps around her, transferring his soul. The effects are cheap but work, at least for this low budget flick.

Angry that the doctors performed the operation without his permission Reanhauer now Sherri decides to have his vengeance on the surgical team. Killing them off is the intent and that doesn’t matter who it involves, including Sherri’s boyfriend and head surgeon Dr. Desmond (Geoffrey Land). The killings are fairly tame for movies of the time let alone by today’s standards with little visuals but plenty of blood.

With such a small amount of story to work with the film is padded with so much extra it almost feels like it was made up of various films tossed together. The whole sequence with the cult in the beginning seems to take forever. A side story involving a pro-football player who’s been in an accident that caused him to lose his sight is tossed in as well as the adoring fan and fellow nurse who is attracted to him.

Don’t be fooled, this movie is definitely one of those ultra-low budget films that were there to sell popcorn and to offer something on the screen that horny teens could care less about while at the drive-in. That being said there is a certain amount of charm to the movie. It might not be something to watch on a regular basis but a night of bad drive-in flicks would be complete if this were in the line-up.

There is another group who will demand that this film be added to their collection and that’s fans of director Al Adamson. Adamson is well known for his low budget films and as co-founder of Independent-International Pictures he had plenty of chances to make movies that filled those outdoor screens for years. Perhaps his best known films were SATAN’S SADIST, a biker flick, DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN and THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES. His films have been rediscovered in recent years and this one is certain to be a must have.

I’d seen this film years ago on DVD but forget who released it at that time. Needless to say the quality offered for the film was severely lacking. Vinegar Syndrome treats the film as if it was a rare gem to be polished and presented in the best possible way releasing it for the first time on blu-ray. The film was restored using the best prints available using the 35mm original negative. Not only that there are more extras included here than can be found on some major motion picture releases. These include a commentary track with producer Sam Sherman, NURSES CONFESSIONS a featurette with co-stars Jill Jacobson and Marilyn Joi, THEN AND NOW a locations featurette, a promotional still gallery, the original trailers and reversible cover artwork. The disc also includes an alternate feature length “exploitation” version of the film called KILLER’S CURSE.

Several companies have made it their goal to resurrect lost treasures like this one and Vinegar Syndrome continues to do a bang up job of it. If you’ve seen this film before the odds are you haven’t seen it in as clean a version as presented here. Adamson fans should grab a copy immediately. Horror fans should consider picking up a copy as well. And lovers of drive-in flicks will find this one worth buying too.

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