“Army of Thieves” is a heist movie fantasy that both asks and answers the question of what if a one-note character from the zombie movie you enjoyed got a two-hour origin story that features no armies and a crew of thieves from your ‘suggested follows’ list on TikTok.
As a zombie outbreak begins in Nevada, a safe-cracking savant – often dismissed as a dweeb – is enlisted by a crew of crooks to conduct a co-ordinated series of heists on some of the most elaborately created safes ever built.
Matthias Schweighöfer returns as Dieter – or Sebastian as we discover in this origin – and graduates to both lead actor and director. Schweighöfer benefits from the template of Zack Snyder’s style of excess to help guide the way.
Travelling from the colourless, model village Munich and isolating routine of a lonesome bank teller by day, to a safe enthusiast unwittingly recruited to the globetrotting world of death-defying heists.
Aesthetically, Schweighöfer gets to play with big splashy, propulsive montages for character introductions and scores along with slow motion for fight scenes. There’s also a grotesque impression of a spittle laden verbal barrage from a bank customer, barking orders his way, that rivals any glimpses we see of the undead outbreak in Las Vegas.
The glimpses of “Army of Thieves” that momentarily quell the impulse to second screen are the extended moments where Schweighöfer’s Sebastian narrates the lore of the elusive safe builder Hans Wagner. Shay Hatten (co-writer of the vastly superior “Army of the Dead” and “John Wick – Chapter 3: Parabellum”) develops a kind of safe-cracking “The Da Vinci Code” or “National Treasure” premise that turns myth and fairy-tale into an elaborate mechanism.
Inspired by his namesake, composer Richard Wagner, the safe-builder Wagner creates a four-segment series of safes as an engineering shrine to art. His four safes, each with increasing levels of safe cracking difficulty (in the lore and not in the course of the movie), and with elaborate engraving (that are purely aesthetic) are Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods – those of you who’ve seen “Army of the Dead” will know why this is important).
In my “Army of the Dead” review, I incorrectly read Sebastian’s (then Dieter) short attention span, obsessive focus, and verbal diarrhoea as symptoms of arrested development. Since that viewing, additional exposure to behaviours and literature on the subject and revisiting the Aussie heist/comedy classic “Malcolm”, I read Dieter more as a character with an unspecified intellectual disability.
Sebastian’s slavish adherence to routines and near-magical (nee savant) level manipulation of these safes and ability to interact beyond his capacity concerning this particular patch of his interests reads like a person on the spectrum.
Neurodivergent characters can be sublimely deployed in heist films from “Rainman” (the archetype) to “The Hangover” (extreme homage and extremely funny), and even “Drive”. Schweighöfer and screenwriter Hatten however don’t directly address it – and they don’t have to – which makes the ‘army’ of thieves featured in the film all the more frustrating.
Ruby O. Fee’s Korina is the crew’s hacker that’s a kind of Frankenstein’s monster of archetypes; part Velma from “Scooby-Doo”, part “She’s All That”, partner hacker, and a D.J. Yes, I’m not joking. Stuart Martin’s Brad Cage is perhaps the most thanklessly stupid character I’ve seen in any Netflix original movies to date (and that’s saying something). No one reading would believe how ridiculous his character’s story is; you truly must see it for yourself.
Guz Khan’s Rolph is a heist getaway driver that blends Tyrone from “Snatch” and the car park attendants from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”; both irresponsible and inept. Nathalie Emmanuel’s performance of Gwendoline is perhaps the only one that doesn’t wholly reek; it’s filled with charm and empathy towards the geeky Sebastian.
The crew’s manipulation of Sebastian, if you interpret him as an out of depth nerd, is cruel, though if you read him as neurodivergent, it’s downright sinister. Films that engage in more serious takes of these issues have depth, “Army of Thieves” has the dimensions of an oil-slicked car park puddle.
“Army of Thieves” is a film that steadily rejects your impulse to like it at every turn. After creating these gloriously intricate safes, that feel like if an ancient artefact exuded the threat of a “Saw” gadget, you’re forced to watch all the ways that the challenge of these contraptions collapse with lithe fingers and a good ear.
In one instance, the break-in occurs from the back of a flatbed truck gliding around icy mountain roads. In the greatest safe-cracking film, “Thief”, director Michael Mann and star James Caan demonstrated the incredible lengths required to penetrate a safe. The time, the toil, the way you must surrender to the sophistication of construction and use gigantic tools to return the metal to liquid forge state.
In “Ocean’s Eleven”, too, we watch Danny (George Clooney) and Linus (Matt Damon) and their ‘inside man’ Yen (Shaobo Qin) coordinate elaborate explosives on both sides of the safe (amongst the other countless cons) to remove the mechanism. Heist films usually relish in the procedure porn, every sublime hurdle jump blissfully executed. “Thieves” is a heist movie where safe’s crack like the characters have wands.
“Army of Thieves” is a misnomer. An army implies that there’s a superior force, tactically proficient, organised, and hierarchical. Going into battle, coordinated execution of force. And paired with thieves, disciplined professional acquirers of valuable things, you’re expecting that they’re good at what they do.
This piddly crew look like a “Big Brother” house cast; they act like their parents have left them money and gone away for a weekend. If you’re looking for motivations for the crew, the Interpol agents following them, or indeed Sebastian, it’s simply – because someone wanted to know how the hell that guy got to “Army of Dead”, of course.
“Dead” was one of the years genuine surprises, a treat to see Snyder developing a stylish, original story, unshackled from the infatuation of the DC fandom’s ongoing obsession with the “Justice League” ‘what if?’ possibilities. “Army of Thieves” could have been the “Dead” equivalent of “The Tale of the Black Freighter” for the “Watchmen,” a 20 minutes accompaniment to the mythos of the Götterdämmerung, interspersed into an extended cut of “Dead”. Instead, we have a pointless, pitiless exercise.