Things You'll Only Notice In Army Of Thieves After Watching A Second Time

Sin City is a source of ire for many vengeful homemakers and tighty-whitey enthusiasts. So imagine their delight when they got to watch Las Vegas get ravaged by the undead in 2021's "Army of the Dead." The Zack Snyder directed action flick placed Dave Bautista at the helm and showed us what you can achieve with an infinite supply of blood squibs and 4K cameras set to portrait mode. Its conclusion left plenty of room for expansion, and a mere five months later, we got just that with "Army of Thieves."

The expansion of this universe didn't branch off in the direction we expected. Rather than picking up where the first film left off, we were instead transported into the backstory of Dieter, the original crew's safecracker. The character is played by Matthias Schweighöfer, who also stepped into the role of director for this adventure. Aside from a brief cameo just before credits roll, Dieter is the only returning character from the original film. There is still plenty of fun to be had, though, along with the gentle reminder that no global catastrophe will ever damper man's greed. We are already hungry for more eyeball food from this zombie universe, so we sat down for another viewing of "Army of Thieves" and there were loads of things we didn't catch the first time around.

Everyone has a weakness. Your class valedictorian may not know how to iron khakis. It's possible that your college economics professor can't scramble an egg. And apparently one of the most skilled safecrackers on the planet never learned how to make a sandwich. Any Subway employee would be seething while watching Sebastian try and make a sandwich in "Army of Thieves." The sandwich is popular for two primary reasons: its tastiness and its simplicity. Cucumbers may taint the decadence of society's highest culinary achievement but most of us could muster the skill to apply them properly should the necessity arise. Sebastian's brain contains far too many vault construction history lessons to be bothered with the simplicity of lunchbox assembly.

Sebastian is hopelessly inept at the simple task of making a sandwich, as we bear witness to in his morning routine montage. While constructing his sandwich he applies one last cucumber to the top and mindlessly attempts to smoosh it flat, despite the uneven ground its contents are mounded upon. His frustration is apparent, but watching it contributes to heart arrhythmia. Your morning routine is sacred, and rightly so. It helps kickstart the day and gives you fuel to make others on your social media jealous of your productivity. Perfecting the skills of your trade is important, but don't forget to spend a couple of minutes watching a toddler make himself a sandwich to learn some of the basic pillars of happiness.

Whether it be the lumbering undead of yore or the rage-filled track stars of the modern zombie era, everyone is a fan of watching heroes disconnect their brain stems from their vacuous meat vessels — preferably in a fountain of glorious gore. The appearance of "Army of Thieves" promised an expansion of the world we saw in the previously released "Army of the Dead." Injecting a zombie threat into the heist film genre promises an ecstatic equivalent to the first time you slathered your waffles in peanut butter — some may see it as over-indulgence, but those of us who know how to experience joy see it for what it really is: salivating.

In the world of "Army of the Dead," so far, the zombie apocalypse has been restricted to Las Vegas, Nevada. News stories in Sebastian's opening montage hint that zombies exist in the world, but only in a far distant land across the Atlantic. By the end of "Army of Thieves" we find ourselves unfulfilled in the brain explodey department. The only encounters we are given as far as zombies go are two dream sequences from Sebastian, which last all of about 30 seconds of the 127-minute film. A high-strung detective on the thieves' heels is a fun adversary, but hardly the bloodthirsty threat we were hoping for mid-bank heist.

Some expectations come with being the head of a multinational investigation. A mustache serves well as an anatomical badge of honor, and a shirt with buttons is usually required. It is also safe to say that another minimum expectation is a level of composure bordering on emotionlessness. As Sebastian and crew are hopping around Europe attempting to complete the elusive Ring Cycle, there is an obsessive Interpol agent on their heels named Delacroix (Jonathan Cohen). He is the head of an entire team of agents and has seemingly limitless tools at his disposal. In Delacroix's world, with great power comes an overwhelming desire to lock up the man who put a bullet in your buttocks.

Delacroix is clearly emotionally compromised with this investigation and, during the first briefing he directs, everyone appears to be aware of this fact. They all look worried about his behavior. And rightly so. He is covered in sweat and has a pair of crazy eyes that play a "Scream" montage if you stare into them too long. Wit and strategy are tossed aside as Delacroix spends a majority of his time scrambling to catch up with the thieves by yelling at everyone around him to just shut their big, stupid mouths. Regardless of whatever career ladders he climbed to reach the role of leadership, it is unlikely he would still be in charge.

Nowadays, any toddler with basic hand-eye coordination can hit record on a 4k-quality camera and fling their art onto the internet for all the world to see. Stardom is an elusive beast, but your chances are more frequent than back in the dark ages we now call the 1900s. Even if you post a video of paint drying onto a YouTube channel with a winking Harvey Weinstein as your avatar, chances are you will accidentally gather some views. All these facts make it remarkable that in "Army of Thieves," Sebastian's videos have garnered a whopping 0 views across the board.

It is a near statistical impossibility for someone's entire YouTube channel to have 0 zero views across all their videos. Especially one that isn't complete nonsensical garbage. Sebastian's channel is informative and well produced. The niche for his subject may be smaller than that of a mid-20's cosplayer eating mac and cheese in front of a studio-quality microphone, but there is still plenty of viewership to be had in the realm of history and artistic vault construction. No matter what your interests are, you will find people on the internet who are interested in the same thing. Rather than expressing Sebastian's hopelessness and pulling us into his reality, this detail instead reminds us we are viewing fantasy.

The tale of Robin Hood is a classic for a myriad of reasons. The primary one is its core ideal of taking from the rich and redistributing it amongst the poor. We have a much easier time connecting with the common folk than the Sheriff being fed grapes in a silk bathrobe. A rags-to-riches tale doesn't exist in "Army of Thieves," though. It is quickly glossed over, but the core characters came from a past that involves tirelessly selecting which silver spoon to eat their caviar with.

Gwendoline's (Nathalie Emmanuel) background is revealed when the film shows her swiping a gold watch while walking through a ritzy department store and then fleeing a mansion after a boy in a tuxedo "broke her heart." Certainly paints the image of restless, spoiled youth instead of criminal by necessity. The background of her childhood compadre, Brad Cage (Stuart Martin), doesn't help invoke any sympathy either. His childhood bully-victim story manages to be overshadowed by his surroundings. Call us heartless, but watching a private school kid go home to his flawless interior decorating and flip on a Nicolas Cage movie in his bedroom is hardly a tale of woe — not to mention the gigantic, pristine fish tank bearing witness to his bench pressing technique. Their backgrounds make it difficult for us to connect with any underlying motivation.

Doctors have stethoscopes and Marvel easter-egg-hunters have AirPods but you better turn down the volume on your headphones if you have dreams of cracking the world's most secure vaults. Never mind that the inner workings of a vault are hidden behind several inches of steel because they are no match for the supersonic hearing of Ludwig Dieter, aka Sebastian. We didn't even notice on the first viewing of "Army of Thieves" that he has very little in his arsenal of tools to help him with penetrating the world's most secure vaults. In fact, viewers are distracted from this oversight with fancy CGI camera sweeps of the mechanism's inner workings.

We aren't pretending to know how best to crack into your local bank, but we are certain there is more complexity to the crime than practice and pressing your ear against the door. The four vaults that make up the Ring Cycle may be many years old, but they are the source of legend for a reason. Giving Sebastian the benefit of the doubt would be reasonable for the sake of cinematic enjoyment until he uses the same method while bouncing around in the back of a truck. You can hear the wind whipping by the trailer's fabric shell and tires screeching, all with Gwendoline yelling in his ear to pick up the pace. We promised ourselves to think positively this year, so let's chalk it up to this universe attempting to subtly inject superhuman abilities into its heroes, a la "Fast and Furious."

Every good robbery involves a layer of deception. The heroes tricking those dorky security guards into allowing them entry is a fun time and leaves room for comedic relief. The banks targeted by our hero thieves here have lighter security than what Daniel Ocean had to deal with, though. There are multiple instances where both Gwendoline and Sebastian walk through security with the appropriate badges without so much as a sideways glance from the folks charged with protecting rich people's money. Nobody knows the people they work with at any of these high-security banks, apparently.

Even if you are actively trying to avoid making friends at your job, eventually you will begin to recognize the faces coming and going. Banks are renowned for their strict hours and copious holidays, which doesn't leave much wiggle room for shift changes and fresh faces. Every bank employee in "Army of Thieves" lives in their own little individual world though. Not a single employee recognizes strange new people wandering their halls. Good thing too because, beyond Sebastian knowing how to listen to vault clicky sounds, the crew's bank-robbing skills don't extend much further than walking in while the computer wizard, Korina (Ruby O. Fee), does all the work.

The grand reveal of what lies behind those gigantic vault doors is the delicious payoff during a heist film. The heroes stand wide-eyed as the camera slowly pans out to show a colossal pile of cold, hard cash. It causes our mouths to water because even our taste buds know how many cupcakes you could buy with that amount of money. The difficult part of the robbery usually involves how to move such a massive amount of loot. The "Army of Thieves" protagonists have no issue in this department, though, because they have magical duffle bags.

At each robbery, there is that highly sought-after mound of money, but we aren't sure the thieves make off with too much of it. Even if they were smart enough to only take what they could carry, the "filled" duffle bags we see them carrying to the van are loosely packed. They barely look as if they're hauling dirty laundry, let alone several thousands of dollars worth of cash. Sebastian's childish enthusiasm distracted us the first watch-through, but this time around, we were left scratching our heads as to what this crew considers a big cash haul.

The first robbery in "Army of Thieves" happens in true blink-and-you'll-miss-it fashion. Before you know it, Sebastian is in the getaway van giggling emphatically at handfuls of moolah. The second heist doesn't go off quite as smoothly. Our resident macho man, Brad Cage, receives a bullet through the shoulder and the whole bank empties out onto the front steps as customers flee the scene. Gwendoline and Sebastian frantically run down the street with their loot while Rolph (Guz Khan) drives away just fast enough to make things difficult. Brad's betrayal distracted us the first time, but this viewing had much less tension because we noticed no one was actually on their tail.

It's obvious that the gang would want to get away from the scene of the crime as swiftly as possible, but multiple camera angles show that no guard or pursuit vehicle was following them. In fact, there is such a lack of pursuit that when Sebastian is left in the street, some cop cars speed right past him toward the bank, passing the getaway vehicle. If anything, there was a missed comedic moment. Brad goes to drop Sebastian just as Rolph stops the vehicle to let them all climb in, they all exchange an awkward moment. This action causes the group to splinter just as it does originally, but now we are all existing in a plausible reality.

"Army of Thieves" is a truly international film. It was written by an American screenwriter (Shay Hatten) and helmed by a German director/actor about a safecracker (Schweighöfer) joining a heist crew gathered from around the world who are being chased by a French Interpol agent (Jonathan Cohen). The zombie outbreak occurs in Las Vegas while the criminals are zipping around Europe. Most of the beginning moments are expressed in German until we are introduced to Gwendoline, who approaches Sebastian in English. These aren't the only two languages spoken in all of "Army of Thieves," however.

The movie does such a wonderful job of dancing around all the represented dialects that we hardly noticed the first time around. Much of Delacroix's briefing situations are expressed in French, and his interactions with everyone else are in English. A fourth language sneaks into the plot briefly as well, thanks to Korina. It comes with one line after she walks away from the van to join Gwendoline and yells something back at Brad in Portuguese. Even more fun is we're pretty sure what she shouts to him is some sort of Portuguese insult that the captioners decided not to translate.

The key to a successful bank robbery lies in seizing rare opportunities. Once a year events, such as elaborate galas, offer good cover or you could start a riot — that's always a fun one. Another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would have to be catching wind about a bank transferring its entire vault to a different location. Keep in mind we do not mean emptying the vault's contents and moving those contents to a different vault. No, we mean the bank has decided to remove the vault structure from its cement encasing deep below the surface of their building and install it elsewhere. In the fantasy world of "Army of Thieves," this incident can occur not once but twice in a single week.

We could abide by the deception of vault swapping for the sake of general heist film shenanigans, but it's inconceivable to have the same twist occur with two different robberies. We are mostly wondering how we didn't notice a lack of any construction debris from moving an entire vault out of the basement the first time we watched "Army of Thieves." The nonchalance of each bank's manager makes it appear as though this type of thing happens all the time.