Petty Larceny: Den of Thieves, reviewed.

He's the Sheriff: Gerard Butler, under fire. (STX)

Here's something I mean with all the generosity of spirit that I hope I possess in my heart: Den of Thieves, a new—well, newly released—crime movie, is not as bad as one might expect the directorial debut from the screenwriter of A Man Apart and London Has Fallen to be. That's because writer-director Christian Gudegast has taken the greatest Los Angeles cops-and-robbers movie ever made and replicated it as closely as one can while filming in Atlanta, with a growling Gerard Butler standing in for an ad-libbing Al Pacino.

My NPR review of Den of Thieves is here. I believe the phrase "coffee-table action flick" is a Klimek Original. 

Two-and-a-Half Stars: 7 Minutes, reviewed.

Luke Mitchell has a mask and a gun but not much of a plan.

I like Michael Mann and I love Heat in particular, and I love Wes Anderson. But 7 Minutes, a nicely-shot hybrid of Heat and Bottle Rocket, Anderson's debut, is less than the sum of its influences. I reviewed it for The Dissolve.