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DEN OF THIEVES (Rated R)

The film calendar tells us that the month of January is often a good time to release action pictures that would never be considered for the awards season, but many action junkies will be thrilled with the pedestrian fare.

That’s the argument to be made for “Den of Thieves,” a gritty crime drama in which the audience is informed that “Los Angeles is the bank robbery capital of the world.” The Chamber of Commerce won’t highlight this nugget of criminal pride.

The film wastes little time getting to heart of the criminal enterprise when an armored car stops at a donut shop and a commando squad of masked robbers descends on the scene in a shootout that kills the guards and several police officers arriving on the scene.

The recently paroled Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) is the leader of the Outlaws, an elite crew of bank robbers that operates with military precision given their tactical skills acquired from special ops service and prison stints.

On the other side of the law, alpha dog “Big” Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler), head of the Regulators in the Major Crimes Unit of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, is a hard-drinking career detective seemingly unencumbered by constraints placed on unfettered police action.

O’Brien quickly suspects that Merrimen, joined by his cohort Enson (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and others, is planning something big, but little does he know at first that the target will be the Federal Reserve, a place as impenetrable as Fort Knox.

The war between these two factions is certain to be dangerous and deadly. At one point, O’Brien quips that his group is not interested in arrests, but only in shooting the criminals because it involves less paperwork.

While the story unfolds into a basic cat-and-mouse game between Merrimen and O’Brien, there are threads of other subplots not fully explored. For one thing, O’Brien’s marriage is collapsing as the result it would seem of possible infidelity.

Red herrings are tossed into the mix when O’Brien elicits information from Merrimen’s driver Donnie (O’Shea Jackson) by questionable means. In the end, all that matters is that the climactic showdown is coming and a traffic jam plays a key part.

“Den of Thieves” shows a lot of ambition for a January movie inspired by “Heat” and others in the genre. It does have its entertainment value for action lovers.



‘Counterpart’ on STARZ cable

The premium cable channel Starz has scored success in its original programming, with the “Outlander” series making its mark in a big way, and series like “American Gods” and “Power” capturing unique audiences.

Delving now into an espionage story in “Counterpart,” which has an otherworldly quality, Starz wants few details of this series to be revealed. As a result, we handle the task of a review with caution and reticence.

“Counterpart” has a lot going for it in that J.K. Simmons, the spokesman in the ubiquitous Allstate commercials and an Oscar winner for his supporting role in “Whiplash,” is called to double duty in a spy world that crosses equivalent dimensions.

After the end of the Cold War, a parallel world was created in the image of Earth, where the inhabitants are identical to us, in physical form if not in mind and temperament, to say nothing of ambitions and desires.

Somewhere out there, in a world accessed only through an underground portal in East Germany, you may find your very own doppelganger. And that’s exactly why J.K. Simmons ends up having to play two sides of his own character.

A lowly cog in the bureaucratic machinery of a Berlin-based international spy agency, Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) discovers that his organization safeguards the secret of a crossing into this mysterious parallel dimension.

When an assassin crosses over to Earth to wreak havoc, the other world’s Howard (also Simmons) is in hot pursuit and soon comes face to face with his earthly twin. The other Howard is a completely different personality.

Where the Berlin-based Howard is meek and unassuming, the other Howard is brash and bold. As fate would have it, they are forced to work together to capture the killer only known as Baldwin (Sara Serraiocco), the most lethal female since Charlize Theron in “Atomic Blonde.”

Even with its science-fiction elements, “Counterpart” mines the secret agent essence of John Le Carre’s “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” where a British agent pretends to be a defector to East Germany.

Show creator and writer Justin Marks told TV critics at the winter press tour that “Counterpart” is more like “the traditional spy fiction genre of John Le Carre” and then we “sprinkled science fiction over the top” of the usual espionage tropes.

This shadowy world of danger and double cross is certainly intriguing in both substance and style, but the best parts are when the two Howards are interacting with other. The double dose of J.K. Simmons is worth a watch.

Tim Riley writes films and television reviews for Lake County News.
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Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.


I'm writing this column on a very cold day, and it's nice to be inside with a board game to play, but better yet, for me at least, to be inside with a poem about a board game.

This Monopoly game by Connie Wanek is from her book Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, from the University of Nebraska Press.

Monopoly

We used to play, long before we bought real houses.
A roll of the dice could send a girl to jail.
The money was pink, blue, gold, as well as green,
and we could own a whole railroad
or speculate in hotels where others dreaded staying:
the cost was extortionary.

At last one person would own everything,
every teaspoon in the dining car, every spike
driven into the planks by immigrants,
every crooked mayor.
But then, with only the clothes on our backs,
we ran outside, laughing.

American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Connie Wanek, “Monopoly,” from Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Connie Wanek and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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“Exodus” screens at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport, Calif., on Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Courtesy image.


LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1960 drama, “Exodus” starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint and Ralph Richardson, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 1 and 6 p.m.

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