How embarrassing is this, huh? You make an epic for millions and millions of eyes to see, Zack Snyder, and one of the insignificant extended cast members says, “Hey, if you don’t mind, I’d like to make a film about my thirty-second character” and that film ends up being better than the epic. Oh, and it’s not just me who thinks so. IMDB currently rates Army of Thieves at 6.4 to Army of the Dead at 5.8. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.
Let me put this in context: Have you seen Ocean’s Eleven? Sure you have. Imagine one of the lesser, throwaway 11, say Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) or The Amazing Yen (Shabo Qin) decided to make a smaller, less aggressive, film called Ocean’s Tarr or Ocean’s Yen and thousands upon thousands of people liked that film better. How do you think that would reflect upon Steven Soderbergh?
Army of Thieves is really just about one thief, who is not really a thief so much as a skilled historian. Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert (boy, there’s a mouthful) is a strictly amateur safe-cracker obsessed with Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Specifically, legend has it, an extremely skilled mechanist built four safes and named each after a member of the Rings in Wagner’s opera. First off, I don’t doubt that you might name a safe; sometimes a safe can be a piece of art … but think of the skill set it takes to crack a named safe. Ah, but that’s Sebastian (star/director Matthias Schweighöfer), a nerdy bank teller who makes amateur YouTube videos about safe-cracking that nobody sees.
And Sebastian isn’t a thief, he’s a devotee. He cracks with a style one might call a “Safe Whisperer.” Oh, and he’s neurotic, too. Cracking a Wagner safe requires playing Wagner at the same time. When he gets nervous, he actually says, “GULP,” before gulping. Yeah, this guy is an international superthief like I’m an international supermodel. Still, recruited
to participate in a local safe-off, Sebastian embarrasses the competition and suddenly finds himself part of their Ocean’s 5. It takes him about thirty seconds to fall for his recruiter/team leader, Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel). The target of this very tiny Army of Thieves? The Ring Cycle safes. That’s quite a coincidence, huh?
You’ve seen heist films; this one isn’t exactly special or new. The best part here is the fact that the team is obsessed with conquest rather than capture, like they’re all résumé-building or something. When the group conquers the first Wagner at a Paris credit union, they haven’t even brought equipment to transport their loot. It’s about the victory, not the money. Also, I found it difficult not to enjoy how Sebastian’s amateur temperament clashed with his AAA skillz. It’s not unheard of that the most skilled person for a job doesn’t have the mind set to do it; in fact it’s a lot more common than anybody likes to admit. As for Army of the Dead? Well, the zombie apocalypse has started a continent away, but it’s all just noise. Sebastian is haunted by ghost zombies, but this is weakest part of the film and serves in no other measure than to tie Army of Thieves to Army of the Dead. I kinda wish it didn’t bother; that subplot is both irrelevant and useless.
That Army had an audience much wider
Yet these Thieves is an improvement bona-fider
There’s no wisdom found
Nor breaking new ground
Only that is wasn’t made by Zack Snyder
Rated TV-MA, 127 Minutes
Director: Matthias Schweighöfer
Writer: Shay Hatten
Genre: Spin-off
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Heist fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Zack Snyder, I imagine
