Army of Thieves Review

PLOT: As zombies wreak havoc in Nevada, in Germany, Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer) works as a bank clerk by day, posting obnoxious Youtube videos about his safecracking prowess by night. When a mysterious woman (Nathalie Emmanuel) contacts him with an offer to put his skills to the test in a series of heists, Dieter finds himself part of an unlikely group of thieves. But is there honour among thieves?

REVIEW: Army of Thieves is a pretty nifty prequel to Army of the Dead in that it does something unique. It operates in a different genre space from its predecessor. While that movie was a horror-action flick, this is a traditional heist movie and a solid one at that. Written by Army of the Dead‘s Shay Hatten, producer Zack Snyder took a big gamble by betting that audiences would want to see more of Dieter, but it turns out he’s an unlikely and hugely likeable hero.

Matthias Schweighofer not only gets to play the lead here but also directs (it’s noteworthy that he has a long history as a director in his native Germany). He’s made a pretty slick, often funny heist flick that slyly mocks the genre’s conventions while still indulging in them. You get to learn a lot more about Ludwig Dieter here, with that not even his real name for a start. It fills you in on his background and why he’s so keen to join Bautista’s crew in Army of the Dead, as he already has a long history with the legendary safe he’s been hired to crack. We learn here that it’s one is a series of safes that have been on his radar his whole life and have long been an obsession of his.

As in the last film, Dieter is an unconventional hero. Unapologetically wimpy, he’s also very likeable and easy to root for. Nathalie Emmanuel ably supports him as the mysterious Gwendolyne. She runs the titular Army of Thieves, which includes Ruby O. Fee’s Korina (the hacker), Guz Khan’s Rolf (the driver) and Stuart Martin’s Brad Cage (the muscle). Emmanuel gets to be center stage here and dominate the action-movie heroics, with her showing off some badass fighting moves as he disables guards and mixes it up with the police. Of the crew, Martin’s Cage is Dieter’s romantic rival for the affections of Gwendoline, who seems unusually charmed by the geeky safecracker.

Netflix put a pretty penny into this prequel, with it pretty slick and polished. However, this was no burn-off prequel. Instead, it’s a major film with its own distinct style, with Schweighofer and DP Bernhard Jasper opting to shoot in a 2:20:1 aspect ratio instead of Snyder’s flat 1:78:1 style in the original. One thing worth noting – there are very few zombies here. While the zombie outbreak is still going on, at this point, Europe has been largely untouched, even if people are still freaking out about the fact that the dead seem to be rising. Dieter’s shown to have recurring zombie nightmares that foreshadow his ultimate fate in Army of the Dead, with some fun call-outs to that film too.

What’s interesting here is that I feel many people will prefer this to its predecessor, as it’s a lot more focused (running just a hair over two hours) and tells a contained story. Army of the Dead had some considerable leaps in narrative logic, but Thieves, for lack of a better word, is somewhat more believable in some ways. It has has a tremendous score by Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro, which pays homage to Dieter’s German origins, with him having a main theme that sounds a bit like a germanic march. There’s also loads of Wagner worked into the score, with Zimmer integrating the operas the various safes are named after as Dieter cracks them.

Overall, I had a blast with Army of Thieves. While it doesn’t have any zombie action, it’s nonetheless a jaunty, energy test movie that should win a lot of fans once it hits Netflix later this week. Heck, even if you hated Army of the Dead, you might dig this one.

Army of Thieves

GREAT

8

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