‘Army of Thieves’ Film Review: Euro Heist Caper Feels Crushingly Generic
“Army of the Dead,” traces over that previous movie without ever improving or even just replicating its lighter elements, especially its chases and safecracking shenanigans.Starring and directed by “Army of the Dead” cast member Matthias Schweighöfer, “Army of Thieves” serves as an origin story for awkward German safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Schweighöfer) who, six years before “Army of the Dead,” was just Sebastian, a nebbish Leo Bloom–type bureaucrat. Sebastian’s routine life changes as soon as he’s recruited by free-spirited jewelry thief Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel, “F9”) to break into four highly sophisticated bank vaults, each one named after an opera in Richard Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung” cycle.