Gerard Butler Archives

Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (2025), starring Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker and Nick Frost

June 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Nico Parker, Mason Thames and Toothless in “How to Train Your Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Directed by Dean DeBlois

Culture Representation: Taking place on the fictional island of Berk, the fantasy/action film “How to Train Your Dragon” (based on the 2003 children’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a multiracial people, black people and indigenous people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: In a Berk culture where humans are supposed to hunt and kill dragons, the misfit son of Berk’s leader befriends a dragon and doesn’t want to kill any dragons.

Culture Audience: “How to Train Your Dragon” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise and family-oriented fantasy films that teach respect for animals.

Gerard Butler and Toothless in “How to Train Your Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

The unsurprising live-action remake of the 2010 animated film “How to Train Your Dragon” has engaging performances and is more visually dazzling than its fully animated counterpart. The remake falls short in the personalities of the teen supporting characters. The sidekick teen characters in the 2025 remake just aren’t as amusing or as interesting as they are in the 2010 movie.

“How to Train Your Dragon” is based on author Cressida Cowell’s fantasy book series that began with 2003’s “How to Train Your Dragon.” The book series has spawned several feature films and short films. The “How to Train Your Dragon” book series is aimed at children, but the movies have wider appeal to many generations.

The 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” reunites some of the same principal filmmakers who worked on the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon.” Dean DeBlois, who co-wrote and co-directed the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon” movie, returns as the sole writer and director of the 2025 “How to Train Your Dragon” and adds the title of producer. John Powell continues as the franchise’s music composer for the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies.

Unlike other live-action remakes of beloved animated films, 2025’s “How to Train Your Dragon” doesn’t make any drastic changes to the plot of the animated movie. This “play it safe” approach is fine, but it doesn’t leave room for doing anything groundbreaking or truly unique to the story. Fortunately, the remake has talented cast members who do the best that they can in bringing these characters to live-action life.

In both “How to Train Your Dragon” movies (which take place in an unspecified period time where there is no electricity or modern technology), the Viking humans on the fictional island of Berk are at war against dragons, which are blamed for killing hundreds of people. The human residents of Berk have retaliated by killing thousands of dragons. Dragons are also blamed for killing livestock that are used for Berk’s food supply.

The dragons come in many shapes and sizes. Most of them live in a secret underground nest that the Berk residents are trying to find. Night Fury dragons are considered the most dangerous and the most elusive dragons to kill. The most important residents of Berk are those who are the most successful dragon slayers. Anyone who finds the secret dragon’s next would be considered a hero in Berk.

The chief of Berk is Stoik the Vast (played by Gerard Butler, who reprises the same Stoik role from the animated “How to Train Your Dragon” films), a gruff and macho widower who hates dragons because his wife was killed by a dragon several years ago. Stoik is raising his and wife’s only child—a 15-year-old son named Hiccup (played by Mason Thames)—to become Stoik’s heir. But so far, Stoik is disappointed because he and many other residents of Berk think that Hiccup is a wimpy coward when it comes to many things, including combat and killing dragons.

Hiccup gets empathy from a grizzled blacksmith/dragon trainer named Gobber (played by Nick Frost), who sometimes acts more like a father figure to Hiccup than Stoik does. Gobber is also Stoik’s longtime best friend. Hiccup is an introverted, misfit loner who lacks confidence and wishes that he could get the respect of Stoik.

Hiccup shows skills in making things with his hands. To prove he has some worth as a potential dragon slayer, Hiccup makes a dragon trap that he places in a remote wooded area. This trap will lead to events that will change the lives of Hiccup and many other people in Berk.

Teenagers in Berk are trained to kill dragons. Gobber leads an elite dragon-slaying training program, which is also an intense competition. The winner of the competition is considered to be on the fast track to becoming a future leader of Berk.

Stoik pressures Hiccup to enroll in this training program, even though Hiccup doesn’t want to kill any dragons. The other teens who are in Gobber’s program are ambitious Astrid (played by Nico Parker); insecure Snotlout (played by Gabriel Howell); goofy Fishlegs (played by Julian Dennison); and bickering fraternal twins Ruffnut (played by Bronwyn James) and Tuffnut (played by Harry Trevaldwyn).

It should be noted that in this fantasy world, Berk is a place where people have varying accents, for no reason given. Stoik has a thick Scottish accent. Hiccup and Astrid have American accents. (Parker is British in real life.) Fishlegs has a New Zealand accent because Dennison is from New Zealand. Almost everyone else has English accents.

In the early days of the training program, Astrid is resentful of Hiccup because she thinks he is underserving scion who gets unfair advantages in life because of nepotism. Astrid, who comes from a working-class background, openly tells Hiccup that she plans to become the next chief of Berk when she’s old enough. Hiccup responds by saying that Astrid, not Hiccup, is the type of child that Stoik wants.

Snotlout has similar “daddy issues” because he desperately wants the respect and approval from his emotionally aloof father Spitelout (played by Peter Serafinowicz), who is one of the dragon-slaying warriors in Stoick’s army. Fishlegs is mainly the training group’s comic relief. Ruffnut and Tuffnut are bratty and try to outdo each other, but these two characters are less appealing in the 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” than the 2010 version.

One day, Hiccup finds out that a jet-black, young male Night Fury dragon has been caught in his trap. Hiccup takes out a knife to kill it, but he can’t do it. Instead, he lets the dragon free from the trap. The dragon is hostile to Hiccup but doesn’t hurt Hiccup.

Half of the dragon’s tail is missing from a trap injury, which prevents the dragon from flying. Hiccup feels guilty about making the dragon disabled. And so, he brings food to the dragon and eventually makes a prosthetic that he attaches to the dragon’s tail so the dragon can fly. Hiccup names the dragon Toothless because the dragon has retractable teeth.

As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Hiccup eventually earns the trust of Toothless and learns to ride on Toothless like someone would ride on a flying horse. Hiccup keeps his budding friendship with Toothless a secret because he knows it’s taboo and he could get punished for befriending a dragon. The movie’s trailer already shows that Toothless won’t be kept a secret for very long.

The rest of “How to Train Your Dragon” plays out exactly like you think it will, if you’ve seen enough of these types of movies and especially if you saw the 2010 “How to Train Your Dragon.” The characters of Hiccup, Astrid, Stoik and Spitelout greatly benefit from live-action performances. Thames is especially good at making Hiccup believable in the action and dramatic scenes.

The 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” excels the most in its visual effects, which are award-worthy. Toothless is even more adorable and soulful in the 2025 version of “How to Train Your Dragon” than he was in the 2010 version. The action sequences in the 2025 movie are thrilling, immersive and occasionally stunning. The 2025 version “How to Train Your Dragon” didn’t take any risks in changing major parts of the story, but sometimes it’s better not to mess with a classic.

Universal Pictures will release “How to Train Your Dragon” in U.S. cinemas on June 13, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on June 11, 2025.

Review: ‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,’ starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr.

January 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”

Directed by Christian Gudegast

Some language in French and Sicilian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in France, Belgium, Italy, Sardinia, and the United States, the action film “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (a sequel to 2018’s “Den of Thieves”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An American police detective tracks down an American fugitive thief in Europe, and they assemble a team to rob a World Diamond Center in Belgium.

Culture Audience: “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and derivative action movies that don’t do anything imaginative.

O’Shea Jackson Jr. in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (Photo by Rico Torres/Lionsgate)

Struggling for a reason to exist, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” fails to be an exciting thriller about a diamond heist. This dreadful action sequel gets bogged down by dull pacing, wooden acting and terrible dialogue. There wasn’t a huge demand for this sequel in the first place. And if you have the patience to watch all of this sloppy and boring movie, it’s easy to see why this middling franchise has overstayed its welcome and should have ended with the first “Den of Thieves” movie.

Christian Gudegast wrote and directed 2018’s “Den of Thieves” and 2025’s “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.” The first “Den of Thieves” movie was by no means great, but it at least had characters with somewhat entertaining personalities. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” all of the characters have the personalities of cardboard cutouts. The action in the first “Den of Thieves” also had an adequate level of suspense. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” the characters do a lot of talking for the first 40 minutes of this 144-minute movie before there’s finally a big action scene.

Even though “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” was released seven years after the original movie, the story picks up less than a year after the events of the first “Den of Thieves” movie. Nicholas “Big Nick” O’Brien (played by Gerard Butler), a detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department detective, is angry that he was duped by former confidential informant Donnie Wilson (played by O’Shea Jackson Jr.), who has disappeared with millions of dollars in stolen cash

Mild spoiler alert if you don’t know what happened at the end of “Den of Thieves”: Donnie turned out to be the mastermind of a massive cash theft from the U.S. Federal Reserve. While his colleagues were killed or captured, Donnie hid the stolen loot in an offshore Panama account and fled to London. The ending of “Den of Thieves” implied that Donnie’s next big theft would be a diamond heist.

Unfortunately, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” assumes that viewers already know what happened in “Den of Thieves,” which is an annoying thing for a sequel to do. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” Donnie does indeed get involved in stealing diamonds. He has teamed up with a group of Balkan outlaws called the Panthers to rob an airplane flight carrying diamonds from Johannesburg, South Africa. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (which was filmed mostly in Sardinia) never credibly explains why this group of Balkan thieves would allow an American outsider (and potential double crosser) to join their gang.

The plane is hijacked in Brussels, Belgium, because the Panthers have disguised themselves in Police Federale SWAT outfits. The Panthers’ jewelry haul, including a rare pink diamond, is worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars. The person who owns this pink diamond is Sardinian mafia boss Matteo “The Octopus” Venzolasca (played by Adriano Chiaramida), which predictably means that he and his thugs will be looking for the Panthers too.

An early scene in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” shows that back in the United States, Nick’s wife has divorced him and taken custody of their kids. His law enforcement reputation has gone downhill because Donnie escaped. And now, Nick wants revenge by tracking down Donnie.

So what does Nick do? He has sex with a stripper named Holly (played by Meadow Williams), who has connections to Donnie’s former gang of thieves, so that Nick can get information from Holly about where Donnie is and what he did with the stolen Federal Reserve money. After Nick has sex with Holly, he handcuffs her, interrogates her, and says he won’t release her until she tells him the information he wants to know.

However, Holly reveals to Nick that she secretly videorecorded their sexual encounter. She blackmails Nick by saying that she’ll tell him what he wants to know, but she wants a cut of the stolen money in return—or else she’ll release the sex video to Nick’s supervisors. Nick reluctantly agrees to this illegal deal. Holly tells Nick that Donnie hid the money in Panama.

In the scene with Holly and Nick, he mentions some nonsense that he can go anywhere in the world to find Donnie because he was given special U.S. Marshal authority that extends to international territories. He flashes a U.S. Marshal badge to prove it. It’s all just so ludicrous. And it’s really just an excuse for Nick to do a lot of globetrotting, but “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is more of a slog than an adventure.

After the plane hijacking, Donnie has been hiding out in Paris, where he is using the alias Jean-Jacques Dyallo. Donnie is pretending to be a gem dealer from the Ivory Coast but is completely unconvincing because Jackson does a terrible job of trying to sound like an African who can speak French. Half of the time, he sounds like an American with a fake accent. The fake accents in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” are unintentionally funny parts of the movie.

Donnie goes to the Nice Financial Diamont Bank to do a shady business transaction. The bank’s corrupt head of security is Chava Falcon (played by Nazmiye Oral), who works with the Panthers. In one of the movie’s most idiotic scenes, Donnie (posing as Jean-Jacques) and Chava go to the World Diamond Center to try and sell these stolen diamonds—even though in real life, these stolen diamonds would surely be on the radar of a place like the World Diamond Center, which gets alerts about high-profile diamond thefts. Chava has a colleague named Olivier (played by Stéphane Coulon), who works as the bank’s concierge.

Nick gets a tip that Donnie is in Paris. Nick goes to Paris and meets up with police chief Hugo Kaman (played Yasen Zates Atour), who leads a task force named Pantera, which has been trying to apprehend the Panthers. Nick tells Hugo about Donnie because Nick suspects Donnie is involved with the Panthers. Nick and Hugo look at surveillance video of Donnie at the Nice Financial Diamont Bank, but Nick pretends that the man in the video isn’t Donnie.

That’s because Nick has his own agenda for wanting to find Donnie. After Nick knows for sure that Donnie is in the Paris area, the next thing you know, Nick suddenly shows up at the same outdoor cafe where Donnie is eating by himself. Instead of taking Donnie into custody, Nick tells Donnie that Nick is financially broke and wants to be part of Donnie’s next heist. Donnie agrees and introduces Nick to the Panthers.

As for the Panthers, they are hollow people who are tedious to watch. Panthers leader Jovanna (played by Evin Ahmad), nicknamed Cleopatra, is supposed to be both a seductive femme fatale and a ruthless mastermind. Ahmad, who stiffly performs in her scenes, is very unconvincing in this role. Jovanna comes across as a starlet who’s more skilled at posting photos of herself on Instagram than leading international jewelry heists.

Jovanna inexplicably lets Donnie take charge of planning the Panthers’ next heist: robbing the World Diamond Center in Belgium. It’s a laughable part of the movie because Donnie can barely speak with a French accent and is an obvious con artist. In real life, professional thieves on this level wouldn’t want to have someone in charge who stands out like an obvious suspect.

The other Panthers are equally boring and superficial. Dragan (played by Orli Shuka) is Jovanna’s “intellectual” right-hand man, who doesn’t really do anything to show he’s as smart as the movie wants us to think Dragan is. Dragan’s specialty is picking locks and other security issues. Dragan doesn’t really trust Donnie, but that’s not an indication of above-average intelligence. It’s just common sense. The Panther “goons” are handsome Marko (played by Dino Kelly) and average guy Slavko (played by Salvatore Esposito), who are the Panthers members who are most likely to be able to handle themselves in fist fights.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” awkwardly veers into soap opera territory in a moronic scene at a nightclub, where Nick, Donnie and the Panthers get high from smoking hashish. Nick starts dancing seductively with Jovanna. Slavko discreetly tells Nick to stop dancing with Jovanna because she’s Marko’s ex-lover, and Marko is getting upset that Jovanna is dancing with Nick. And predictably, a fist fight breaks out between Nick and Marko.

The reunion of Nick and Donnie should have brought a lot of interesting tension to the story. Instead, Nick and Donnie act like petulant teenagers who do things like argue over who’s a better swimmer. It’s all just so embarrassing to see grown men act this way. Butler (who is one of the movie’s producers) looks bored in his portrayal of jaded and world-weary Nick. Jackson’s performance as Donnie is not interesting enough to elevate this misguided film.

There’s a scene that attempts to give Nick and Donnie some emotional depth, when they open up to each other about why they chose their career paths. Donnie, a California native, says his interest in becoming a thief began when he was a teenager from a working-class/poor household and had to walk to school from his hometown of Hawthorne to Torrance as part of his school’s racial integration program.

During these walks through upscale neighborhoods, Donnie says he learned to case the houses and find out residents’ routines, such was when they weren’t home during the day. It was only a matter of time before he broke into a house. Because “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” has no imagination, Donnie is a negative racial stereotype of an African-American man who was raised by an underprivileged single mother and who turned to a life of crime. Donnie mentions that when he was a child, he witnessed his father getting killed.

Nick has his own childhood sob story, which he tells to Donnie in this conversation. His father was shot and was left with a permanent limp. The shooter was never caught. Nick says this incident motivated Nick to go into law enforcement. The entire shaky premise of “Den of Thieves: Pantera” is that Nick has decided to become a secret criminal, but it’s never believable that the Panthers would let Nick become part of their group so easily.

In a separate scene that’s meant to show Nick’s “vulnerable” side, Nick inexplicably shows up at Hugo’s church when divorced father Hugo is there attending a service with his son and daughter, who are about 4 to 7 years old. This scene is poorly written and shows Nick acting like a stalker, as he sits behind Hugo and the children, and then follows them outside after the church service ends. The main purpose of this scene is so Nick can tell Hugo that he’s a divorced father too.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” wastes a lot of time on monotonous conversations and underwhelming action scenes. The first “Den of Thieves” movie had a compelling chief villain who got a lot of screen time. But “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” doesn’t have a clear-cut chief villain, which is sorely needed to maintain viewer interest in a crime movie.

On a technical level, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” has a lot of dark and drab cinematography that makes many of the scenes look too murky and unappealing. The musical score is competently generic. Tighter film editing might have benefited this rambling and incoherent film, although the movie’s weakest link is still the awful screenplay.

The scenes showing heists and getaways do nothing clever and are just inferior ripoffs of better movies about jewelry heists. The “twist” ending of “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” makes it clear that another sequel is planned. But there isn’t enough in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” for most viewers to care about the continuation of this disappointing story.

Lionsgate released “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” in U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Kandahar’ (2023), starring Gerard Butler, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, Bahador Foladi, Nina Toussaint-White, Vassilis Koukalani and Travis Fimmel

May 28, 2023

by Carla Hay

Gerard Butler and Navid Negahban in “Kandahar” (Photo by Hopper Stone, SMPSP/Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Kandahar” (2023)

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Some language in Persian, Arabic and Urdu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the mid-2010s in Iran, Dubai, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, the action film “Kandahar” features a white and Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A Scottish military-trained operative, on loan from MI6, works undercover with the CIA to stop terrorism in the Middle East, but his cover is blown, and he and an interpreter must find their way to safety at an extraction point in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Culture Audience: “Kandahar” will primarily appeal to people who are fans of star Gerard Butler and formulaic and forgettable action movies about fighting terrorists in the Middle East.

Bahador Foladi and Nina Toussaint-White in “Kandahar” (Photo by Hopper Stone, SMPSP/Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Kandahar” gets awfully convoluted and takes too long to get to the main mission in the story. The film editing is sloppy, while the action scenes are unremarkable. The movie’s worst idea is the secret CIA surveillance room that gets unrealistic footage. It’s yet another violent action flick about stopping terrorists in the Middle East, with a predictable protagonist who’s “rough around the edges” heroic. The problem is that “Kandahar” gets so distracted with subplots, the movie just ends up being a formulaic mush of chase scenes, explosions and fights in Middle Eastern locations.

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Mitchell LaFortune, “Kandahar” seems very impressed with itself in showing all the international locations where the story is supposed to take place, but there’s very little character development in all of this nation-hopping. The movie, which takes place in the mid-2010s, jumps back and forth to scenes that are supposed to take place in Iran, Dubai, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. “Kandahar” was actually filmed in Saudi Arabia.

The first 30 minutes of the two-hour “Kandahar” is like watching a racing car spin its wheels and not getting anywhere. A lot of viewers who watch “Kandahar” without knowing anything about it in advance will be wondering during these first 30 minutes exactly what this movie is going to be about. The movie’s first 30 minutes are a very long setup to show that Tom Harris (played by Gerard Butler), a gruff and tough undercover operative originally from Scotland, is on loan from MI6 to the CIA. He’s embedded as part of a CIA mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear program before Iran has a chance to build a catastrophic bomb.

The opening scene shows Tom and a CIA operative named Oliver Altman (played by Tom Rhys Harries) getting detained by Iranian soldiers in a desert in Qom, Iran. Tom and Oliver are posing as service employees for a company named SIBLIXT Communications, and they have a SIBLIXT Communications van as part of their cover. When Oliver and Tom are questioned by the suspicious soldiers, Tom (who is seen as the bigger threat) and Oliver insist that they were hired by the Iranian government to work on telephone lines so that the city of Qom can have better Internet connectivity.

It all looks so phony, because this setting is in a remote desert area, with no telephone lines in sight. Tom and Oliver being obvious Westerners are also big indications that they’re not who they say they are. They might as well be wearing T-shirts that say “Undercover Operatives From a Western Nation.” Tom shows the interior of the van to the soldiers, in order to prove that Tom and Oliver have no weapons. Tom also shows them some video footage on his cell phone to “prove” that there’s Internet service in the area.

Even though none of this proves that Tom and Oliver are who they say they, the soldiers let Tom and Oliver go anyway. Oliver and Tom drive away with some relief and pride that the soldiers believed their story. The only purpose of this scene is to show viewers that Tom has the skills to talk his way out of tricky situations with dimwitted soldiers.

Meanwhile, a British journalist named Luna Cujai (played by Nina Toussaint-White) is seen getting some photos emailed to her from a U.S. Pentagon contact named James. These photos are irrefutable evidence that the CIA is involved in covert operations that are usually not sanctioned by the government (also known as black ops), and this activity is happening in Iran and other parts of the Middle East. Luna has a phone conversation with a supervisor to tell this boss that she has uncovered some bombshell information.

“It’s a bigger scandal than [Edward] Snowden and WikiLeaks combined,” Luna excitedly tells her supervisor. She then sends the incriminating evidence to her boss, who is never seen on camera. And when a journalist in a movie about fighting terrorism uncovers something that could be an international scandal, it’s easy to predict that the journalist is going to be in some peril at some point in the movie. As already shown in the trailer for “Kandahar,” Luna gets kidnapped.

Tom’s main CIA contact in the Middle East is another undercover operative named Roman Chalmers (played by Travis Fimmel), an American who is mostly seen having secretive phone conversations while dressed in traditional Middle Eastern garb. Roman’s big action scenes don’t come until much later in the movie. What looks very fake about many of Roman’s phone conversation scenes is that he discusses classified information while walking around in public, as if no one else can eavesdrop on these public conversations.

And it wouldn’t be a typical Gerard Butler action movie without part of the plot being about his “hero” character having a race against time to get home safely to a family member. In the case of Tom, he has promised his soon-to-be ex-wife Corrine Harris (played by Rebecca Calder) that he will be back in the United Kingdom in time go to the high-school graduation ceremony of their daughter Ida Harris (played by Olivia-Mai Barrett), who wants to become a doctor.

During a phone conversation between Tom and Corrine, she says that she wants Tom to sign their divorce papers. Corrine tells him that she has a new man in her life but doesn’t go into further details. Corrine suggests that, for Ida’s sake, Tom should find a safer line of work, such as teaching. Tom replies, “I’m not really interested in sitting behind a desk all day.”

Meanwhile, Roman has hired an Iranian interpreter named Mohammad “Mo” Doud (played by Navid Negahban) to work with Tom for their undercover mission. Mo needs the money, but he has another motivation to do this potentially dangerous job. Mo eventually tells Tom that Mo blames the Taliban for the death of his son Amin, who was Mo’s only child. In a movie like “Kandahar,” the odds are very high that Mo will come face-to-face with the man who murdered Amin.

Mo is also looking for the missing sister of his wife Adila Doud (played by Reem AlHabib), who is a typical “worried wife at home” character that’s very common in macho movies like “Kandahar,” where only men are seen in combat. Mo’s search for his missing sister-in-law is yet another subplot that gets thrown into the movie, only to be mishandled and lost in the overall muddled story. Expect to hear Tom give multiple apologies to Mo for various screw-ups and deliberate miscommunications that are in the movie just to create more drama.

“Kandahar” has generic depictions of the CIA and Tom’s opponents. A meeting between the Taliban Shura leadership with Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.) at I.S.I. headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan, is plunked into the movie like a soulless and drab corporate meeting, with characters who are mostly nameless. The movie makes little effort to have memorable antagonists to the “heroes.”

There’s a cold-blooded Iranian government operative leader named Bashar Hamadani (played by Vassilis Koukalani), a Taliban ally, who orders the kidnapping of Luna, when he finds out that she has valuable information about CIA operations in Iran and elsewhere. Farzad Asadi (played by Bahador Foladi), who is Bashar’s loyal subordinate, is the main person who interrogates Luna when she’s in captivity. A ruthless assassin named Kahil (played by Ali Fazal) is supposed to be a rising star in the Taliban, but he comes and goes in the movie with all the personality of a cardboard cutout.

And the CIA officers giving orders and making leadership decisions are equally lacking in distinctive personalities. Mark Lowe (played by Mark Arnold) and Chris Hoyt (played by Corey Johnson) are the bland CIA officials who are given the most screen time. Mark and Chris do a lot of monitoring in a secret CIA room with giant video screens. This secret room has inexplicably perfect aerial views of whatever fight scenes or chases are going with the CIA operatives on the ground, even though there are no drones in the sky during these scenes to explain how the CIA is getting this video footage.

The secret CIA room can also pick up audio with pristine sound levels when people are giving chase or are being chased in the same scene. In other words, the CIA can listen in on what’s being said during these chase scenes. Who knew that the CIA could somehow plant invisible microphones on the Taliban in the middle of a chase scene that’s usually in a remote desert? And it’s all filmed for the CIA from the air and sometimes in the vehicles that are involved in the chase.

Because yes, “Kandahar” wants viewers to believe that the CIA has all this magical surveillance equipment to monitor CIA operatives and opponents, but the CIA can’t figure out how to get Tom and Mo to safety when Tom’s cover is blown because the information that journalist Luna uncovered is leaked to the Taliban. Tom and Mo’s only hope for safety is to reach an extraction point in Kandahar, Afghanistan, but there comes a point in the movie when Tom and Mo are left to figure out how to get there on their own. Somehow, the CIA’s magical surveillance room isn’t going to work to find Tom and Mo, because there would be no “Kandahar” movie if Tom and Mo weren’t left stranded in the desert with Taliban soldiers chasing after them, which is the movie’s main dramatic hook.

The acting performances in “Kandahar” aren’t terrible, but they’re not great either. That’s because almost everyone in the movie is written like a video game character. Negahban’s performance as Mo is the exception, since there’s real depth to his portrayal of the Mo character, who has more at stake in trying to stay alive than making it on time to a child’s graduation ceremony. Hollywood movies almost never have characters like Mo as the central protagonists. The type of suffering that Mo lives with is just too real for make-believe films that want to perpetuate myths about a certain stereotypical character who is almost always the main hero of the story.

Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment released “Kandahar” on U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.

Review: ‘Plane,’ starring Gerard Butler and Mike Colter

January 14, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Plane”

Directed by Jean-François Richet

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Philippines and briefly in Singapore and New York City, the action film “Plane” features a white and Asian cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A Scottish-born airplane pilot working for a commercial American airline company leads a rescue mission after a plane that he is piloting makes an emergency landing in a remote jungle in the Philippines, and the survivors are held hostage by a gang of terrorists.

Culture Audience: “Plane” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Gerard Butler and well-paced action movies about heroic rescue missions.

Daniella Pineda, Gerard Butler and Yoson An in “Plane” (Photo by Kenneth Rexach/Lionsgate)

As a semi-realistic action movie, “Plane” delivers exactly what it’s supposed to be: pure escapist entertainment full of gripping suspense. The movie has a few twists that don’t make the story as predictable as it could have been. “Plane” isn’t pretending to be award-worthy art, so viewers shouldn’t have those expectations at all.

Directed by Jean-François Richet, “Plane” (whose screenplay was written by Charles Cumming and J.P. Davis) has a somewhat misleading title because most of the action does not take place on a plane. The first third of the movie is about a commercial plane having to make an emergency landing in a remote jungle of the Philippines, due to an electrical malfunction and lightning striking the plane. The rest of the film is about what happens when the surviving passengers and crew members are stranded in the jungle and targeted by a gang of terrorists.

“Plane” begins by showing this ill-fated flight and who is on board for this trip. The fictional airplane company Trailblazer (which is based in New York City) is operating Flight 119, which is going from Singapore, with a planned layover in Tokyo, and then on to Hawaii. (“Plane” was actually filmed in Puerto Rico.) The captain of this flight is Brodie Torrance (played by Gerard Butler), a native of Scotland who has experience flying for the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom. Brodie is a widower (his wife died three years ago) who lives in Hawaii. He has a daughter named Daniela (played by Haleigh Hekking), who is in her late teens.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and there are only 14 passengers on this flight. The co-pilot is Samuel Dele (played by Yoson An), who is originally from Hong Kong. Samuel is happily married with two pre-teen daughters. The three flight attendants on this trip are Bonnie Lane (played by Daniella Pineda), Maria Falco (played by Amber Rivera) and Isabella Yu (played by Michelle Lee), with Bonnie as the flight attendant who has the most obvious leadership qualities.

Not long before the flight is scheduled to leave, Brodie is informed by the FBI that an agent named Shellback (played by Remi Adeleke) will be boarding with a recently arrested fugitive who was found in Singapore, after the fugitive evaded capture for 15 years. This fugitive, whose name is Louis Gaspare (played by Mike Colter), is an American who is wanted for murder. Louis is brought on board in handcuffs, but Brodie thinks it’s best if the rest of the flight’s crew members do not know the details of why Louis is handcuffed.

Shellback and Louis are seated in the very last row of the plane. The other passengers are scattered in various other seats. Many of these passengers are not given enough screen time or dialogue to have distinguishable personalities. But other passengers stand out and affect certain parts of the story.

Matt Sinclair (played by Joey Slotnick) is an impatient and demanding American in his 50s. Maxwell Carver (played by Oliver Trevena) is a talkative and inquisitive Brit in his 30s. Two women in their 20s are friends and travel companions: Brie (played by Lily Krug) is American, and Katie (played by Kelly Gale) is Swedish. Katie and Brie are both giggly and excited to be on this trip.

While boarding the plane, one of the passengers notices that the plane is an old model and makes a comment about it to Brodie. In a defensive but pleasant tone, Brodie says, “These planes are indestructible.” And when someone in an airplane disaster action movie brags about the plane being indestructible, you know what that means: The plane is going to malfunction.

Even before this happens, there’s tension on the plane because a few of the passengers have noticed that Louis came on board in handcuffs. Brie and Katie were originally assigned to sit in the seats now occupied by Louis and Shellback, but Bonnie discreetly tells Brie and Katie that they have to move a few rows up. When Brie and Katie are seated, they start to take a selfie photo.

However, Louis gets very agitated at the thought of being in the background of their photo, and he barks at them when they’re about to take the picture: “Can you not do that?” Later in the movie, when Maxwell starts making a video recording with his own phone, Louis has an even angrier and more extreme reaction. How much of a loose cannon is Louis? And can he be trusted?

It’s already shown in the “Plane” trailer and other marketing materials that Louis is eventually taken out of his handcuffs to help Brodie in the jungle when the surviving people on the plane come under attack by the gang of terrorists. (Brodie is the one who makes this decision to uncuff Louis.) The leader of the terrorist gang is a ruthless thug named Junmar (played by Evan Dane Taylor), who wants to hold these survivors hostage for big ransom money. It’s something that the gang has done before when visitors have the misfortune of getting stranded in this jungle.

Meanwhile, back at Trailblazer headquarters in New York City, company officials are frantically trying to locate the plane and its occupants, since the plane has dropped off the radar and is considered missing. Trailblazer chief executive Scarsdale (played by Tony Goldwyn) is leading the search-and-rescue efforts. It’s explained in the movie that the Philippines government won’t get involved because the jungle is in a part of the country overrun with terrorists that the Philippines government has given up trying to control. Therefore, Scarsdale makes the decision to hire a private group of mercenaries to help.

“Plane” has some adrenaline-packed action scenes that go in some unexpected directions, while some of the “shoot ’em up” scenes come very close to looking like generic video-game combat. However, the dynamics between Brodie and Louis make “Plane” a little more interesting than the average action flick. There’s nothing particularly special about any of the acting in the film, but no one is outright horrible either. “Plane” is an overall satisfying and serviceable thriller for anyone seeking this type of entertainment.

Lionsgate released “Plane” in U.S. cinemas on January 13, 2023.

Review: ‘Copshop’ (2021), starring Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo

September 8, 2021

by Carla Hay

Frank Grillo (center) in “Copshop” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Copshop” (2021)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Gun Creek, Nevada, the action film “Copshop” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and the criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A con artist, who has landed in jail for assaulting a cop, finds out that more than one person in the jail is out to kill him because of his past alliance with a murdered district attorney.

Culture Audience: “Copshop” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo and like seeing a movie with a badly conceived story and a lot of unrealistic violence.

Gerard Butler in “Copshop” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Copshop” can’t decide if it wants to be a gritty action flick or a wacky crime comedy. The result is that this creatively bankrupt film is an incoherent mess. The dialogue is awful, the acting is mediocre, and it’s just a time-wasting excuse to be a “shoot ’em up” flick with a nonsensical plot. Directed by Joe Carnahan, who co-wrote the “Copshop” screenplay with Kurt McLeod, “Copshop” is filled with lazy tropes that a lot of audiences dislike about mindless, violent movies.

“Copshop” over-relies on these tiresome clichés: Characters sustain major injuries that would put them in a hospital, but then these same characters miraculously move around less than an hour later as if they’ve got nothing but bruises. People draw guns on each other with the intent to kill, but then they spend a ridiculous amount of time giving dumb speeches or trading insults instead of shooting. And worst of all: “Copshop” constantly plays tricks on viewers about who’s really dead and who’s really alive.

All of that might be excused if the action scenes were imaginative, if the storylines were exciting and/or if the characters’ personalities were appealing. But most of the principal characters in “Cop Shop” are hollow and forgettable. The fight scenes are monotonous and nothing that fans of action flicks haven’t already seen in much better movies.

“Copshop” takes place in the fictional Nevada city of Gun Creek, which is in the middle of a desert. (“Copshop” was actually filmed in New Mexico and Georgia.) Gun Creek is a fairly small city, which is why there are only about six or seven cops on duty at the Gun Creek Police Department’s headquarters, where most of the action takes place when the police department goes under siege one night. You know a movie is bad when guns and bombs are going off in a police department, and yet the cops are too stupid to try to call for help immediately.

Nothing about this police department and its jail looks authentic. Before the chaos breaks out, everything is too neat, too quiet and too clean in the cops’ office space and in the jail. In other words, everything looks like a movie set. This phoniness just lowers the quality of this already lowbrow movie.

And the cinematography went overboard in trying to make the jail look “edgy,” because it’s too dark inside. And yet the jail cells are spotless. Jail cells aren’t supposed to look like a sleek underground nightclub. This movie is such a bad joke.

The gist of the moronic story is that Theodore “Teddy” Morretto (played by Frank Grillo) is a con artist who’s on the run from an assassin. In one part of the movie, Teddy describes himself as some kind of power broker who likes to introduce powerful people to each other and help fix their problems. He doesn’t like to call himself a “fixer” though. He likes to call himself a “manufacturer.”

One of the people whom Teddy had past dealings with was an attorney general named Fenton (played by Dez), who has been murdered. This crime has made big news in the area. Because of information that Teddy knows, he figures that he’s next on the hit list of whoever wanted Fenton dead.

In case it wasn’t clear that someone wants Teddy to be killed, a flashback scene shows that a bomb was set in Teddy’s car, it exploded, and he barely escaped with his life. His clothes caught on fire, but then later in the story, there’s no mention of him having the kind of burn injuries that he would’ve gotten from the types of flames spread on his body. It’s just sloppy screenwriting on display.

Teddy has come up with a plan to hide out for a while. He deliberately gets himself arrested because he thinks he’ll be “safer” in jail. Teddy disrupts a nighttime wedding reception at a casino, where a brawl is happening outdoors. When the police show up, Teddy assaults one of the cops and literally pleads for a cop to use a taser on him.

The cop who obliges his request is rookie Valerie Young (played by Alexis Louder), who is measured and sarcastic in her interactions with people. On the same night that Teddy is hauled into the police station and put in a jail cell, an anonymous drunk man who has no identification is also arrested and put in the jail cell across from Teddy. The other man got arrested because he crashed his car into a highway fence, right in front of two patrol officers who were parked nearby.

It turns out (and this isn’t spoiler information) that this other arrestee is really an assassin named Bob Viddick (played by Gerard Butler), who is somewhat of a legend among the criminals in Nevada. Somehow, Bob found out that Teddy was in the police department’s jail, and he got himself arrested because he’s been assigned to murder Teddy. And just so you know how incompetent this police department is, Bob has smuggled a gun into the jail cell.

The rest of “Copshop” is literally a bunch of shootouts, as the police station goes under siege when another assassin shows up. He’s a lunatic gangster named Anthony Lamb (played by Toby Huss), and he wants to kill Teddy, Bob and everyone else in the building, except for a corrupt cop who has access to a large haul of confiscated drugs that Anthony wants. This criminal cop is named Huber (played by Ryan O’Nan), and he owes Anthony a lot of money.

Huber is one of the cops in charge of the inventory/evidence at the police department. Huber plans to steal several bricks of what looks like cocaine, in order to pay off his debts to Anthony. It’s a dumb plan because this police department is so small that it would be easy to figure out who took the drug stash.

Huber already looks suspicious, because he’s been sweaty and acting nervous all night. Here’s an example of the movie’s terrible dialogue. When a fellow cop notices that Huber has been acting furtive and preoccupied with the inventory room, he asks Huber, “What’s got you so curious?” Huber replies, “Curiosity.”

Rookie cop Valerie is telegraphed early on as the one who will be the movie’s big hero. But she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. When she looks up Teddy’s criminal record, she’s astonished to see that he’s been arrested 22 times but no charges were ever filed against him. “How does that happen?” she asks a fellow cop in the office. Can you say “confidential informant,” Valerie?

Despite being saddled with a horrible script, Louder’s wisecracking depiction of Valerie is one of the few things that can be considered close to a highlight of “Copshop.” The other is the nutty performance of Huss as mobster Anthony, who is a scene stealer. How unhinged is Anthony? He starts singing in the middle of the mayhem. “Copshop” uses Curtis Mayfield’s 1972 hit “Freddie’s Dead” has a recurring song in more than one scene.

However, there’s nothing about any of the characters in the movie that can be considered outstanding enough for audiences to be clamoring for a sequel. Butler and Grillo are two of the producers of “Copshop,” so they’re partially to blame for how this embarrassing schlock turned out, but Carnahan (also a “Copshop” producer) is the one who’s chiefly responsible. It’s not the first time they’ve done these types of unimpressive B-movies, and it won’t be the last time.

Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment will release “Copshop” in U.S. cinemas on September 17, 2021. The movie had a one-night-only sneak preview in U.S. cinemas on September 8, 2021.

Review: ‘Greenland,’ starring Gerard Butler

December 18, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Greenland”

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of North America, the sci-fi action flick “Greenland” features a predominantly white cast (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A structural engineer, his wife and their 7-year-old son are selected by the U.S. government to be part of an elite evacuation program during a comet disaster, and this privileged status causes problems for them when they are separated during the chaos.

Culture Audience: “Greenland” will appeal primarily to people who like suspenseful apocalyptic movies that have underlying commentary about society’s conflicts over social classes and privilege.

Gerard Butler in “Greenland” (Photo courtesy of STX)

Out of all the types of apocalyptic disaster stories that can be told, perhaps the most terrifying is some variation of “the sky is falling,” whether it’s from meteors, comets or another deadly force from outer space. In the above-average sci-fi thriller “Greenland” (directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling), the threat from outer space is a highly unusual comet that scientists at first think is a natural wonder to behold. But the comet turns out to be the worst kind, because it ends up causing worldwide damage and has the power to wipe out most of Earth’s population.

It’s a concept that’s been done in movies before, but “Greenland” ramps up the suspense level in realistic ways because it’s not too caught up in trying to scare people with visual effects, which are actually done very well in this film. Instead, “Greenland” focuses on the terror experienced by a family of three who get separated from each other in the chaos of an evacuation. There are added layers of stress because the child in this family is diabetic, and the family is targeted by desperate and envious people who want what this family has: privileged U.S. government clearance to be taken to a secret shelter that was built to withstand the worst disasters and attacks.

Like a lot of disaster movies, “Greenland” starts out with people being blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that’s coming their way. In Florida, structural engineer John Garrity (played by Gerard Butler), who is originally from Scotland, is on the job at a construction site, but he wants to get home as soon as possible because his 7-year-old son Nathan (played by Roger Dale Floyd) is having a party where several people in the neighborhood have been invited. John and his American wife Allison (played by Morena Baccarin), who were separated in the past and are now trying to work on their marriage, are organizing the party.

The big news around the world is that there’s an interstellar comet that is passing by Earth, and it’s expected to be the closest fly-by of a comet in Earth’s history. This highly anticipated sighting is such a big deal that people are having watch parties, and the news has been reporting the latest updates on the comet’s trajectory. The comet is considered so safe that it’s been named Clarke.

However, as soon as John gets home, something strange happens: He gets phone messages by text and by robocalls from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. These messages order John, Allison and Nathan to report to Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Georgia, because they have been selected for emergency relocation. The messages demand that no one else can accompany this family of three to the Air Force base.

John doesn’t know if these messages are real or some kind of prank. He tells people at the party about the messages, and they’re not sure if the messages are real either. A few of the adults at the party wonder why they didn’t get these messages too. John doesn’t know why he and his family were selected for this special evacuation.

However, it soon becomes obvious that the messages really are from the U.S. government. While the Garrity family and their party guests are in the living room watching the latest comet news on TV, the first sign that the comet is going to be disastrous comes when it’s reported that a fragment of the comet that was supposed to crash in the ocean near Brazil instead landed in Tampa. The shockwaves caused Tampa to burn, and the inferno blast spread all the way to Orlando.

John and Allison decide to quickly pack up some family belongings and go with Nathan by car to Robins Air Force Base, as instructed. There are some moments of high anxiety when a few of the neighbors beg to go with the Garrity family, but John refuses because he correctly assumes that anyone who doesn’t have government clearance will be turned away. However, he promises that he will contact the neighbors after he finds out more details about what’s going on with the evacuation.

Meanwhile, the Garrity family hears on the car radio that more of the comet’s fragments are wiping out entire parts of the world, including Bogotá, Colombia. Scientists are frantically trying to predict where the fragments might land next, in order to evacuate people from those areas. Anxiety then turns to sheer panic.

Word has gotten out that Robins Air Force Base is one of the designated meeting areas for the evacuees who were selected by the U.S. government. And so, when the Garritys arrive at the Air Force base, they see a terrified and angry mob of people who demand to be let in, even though most of them are not supposed to be there. It’s a foreshadowing of the “haves” and “have nots” conflicts that happen during several scenes in the movie.

Several military personnel are on duty to only allow access to people who are on the government clearance list. And those pre-approved people get yellow wristbands to identify them. There are several Air Force planes waiting to take thousands of people to the same shelter, which is in a classified location that is later revealed to be in Greenland.

The Garrity family makes it safely through the checkpoint, but things take a turn for the worse when they find out that Nathan, who is diabetic, accidentally dropped his insulin in the car when he was looking for a blanket. John finds out that he has only about 15 to 20 minutes before the family’s assigned evacuee plane leaves. He also finds out that all the planes are headed to the same place, so that if he can’t be on the same plane as his wife and son, he’ll hopefully be able to reunite with them at the shelter.

John and Allison hastily make a decision that John will go back to the car to get Nathan’s medicine, while Allison will stay with Nathan and board the plane. However, more complications ensue when Allison speaks to a military guard and tells him about their situation and how they can’t leave without John. And that’s when the guard tells her that because Nathan is diabetic, it’s a health liability, and the Garrity family shouldn’t have been approved for the emergency shelter.

The guard and a colleague then tell Allison and Nathan that they can’t get on the plane after all. Allison and Nathan are then forced to go with the guards to another area, where Allison pleads with another military person to let them on the plane because they don’t want to be separated from John. What happens next are several twists and turns to the story, some of which are unpredictable, while other plot developments are a tad cliché.

All of the cast members give very good performances, even though this movie is not on the type of prestige level where it’s going to get any major awards. The filmmakers avoided the stereotype that a lot of American-made disaster movies have: making the male protagonist/hero someone who was born and raised in the United States. Butler, who is Scottish in real life, keep his native accent in the movie. (Butler is one of the producers of “Greenland,” so that probably had a lot to do with the decision to make John Garrity a Scot too.)

Another non-cliché aspect to “Greenland” is that it doesn’t follow the disaster movie formula of having the hero’s love interest be a passive “damsel in distress.” Allison is no ditz who waits around to be rescued. There are moments where Allison steps up in a big way to help save her family. Baccarin’s portrayal shows a lot of authenticity in how real women would act in the same situation, with all the bravery and vulnerability that comes with it.

John and Allison’s son Nathan is thankfully not written as “too precocious to be true” or a “disease of the week” kid. Floyd capably portrays Nathan’s intelligent sensitivity as a kid who just happens to have diabetes. The movie also makes a point of showing how Nathan’s medical condition quickly changed the status of the Garrity family from “desirable” to “undesirable” candidates for evacuation. It speaks to the prejudice that people could encounter in a similar situation where governments decide who in the population will get preferential treatment in a mass evacuation.

One of the other memorable characters in “Greenland” is Allison’s widower father Dale (played by Scott Glenn), who somewhat mistrusts John because of the problems in John and Allison’s marriage. And there’s a married couple in the story named Judy Vento (played by Hope Davis) and Ralph Vento (played by David Denman), who play a key role in one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the movie.

Throughout the film, director Waugh never lets up on the frantic pace after the comet disaster strikes. (Waugh and Butler previously worked together on the 2019 action film “Angel Has Fallen.”) And when it comes to characters, “Greenland” wisely takes a “less is more” approach, since the story is focused on this family of three and their perspective for the entire film. It’s a departure from the typical disaster movie that has different storylines for a group of strangers. Simply put: “Greenland” is an apocalyptic movie that isn’t going to change the world, but it largely succeeds in being suspenseful, escapist entertainment.

STX released “Greenland” on VOD on December 18, 2020. The movie will be released on digital on January 26, 2021, and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 9, 2021.

Gerard Butler and 50 Cent play a dangerous game of cops and robbers in ‘Den of Thieves’

January 19, 2018

by Carla Hay

Gerard Butler and 50 Cent at the New York City press junket for “Den of Thieves” (Photo by Carla Hay)

In the gritty crime drama “Den of Thieves” (written and directed by Christian Gudegast), an elite unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department named the Regulators is on a mission to bust an elusive gang of bank robbers called the Outlaws. Gerard Butler plays “Big” Nick O’Brien, the leader of the Regulators, whose rule-bending ways to get what he wants blur the lines between who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys.” Pablo Schreiber plays Ray Merriman, the leader of the Outlaws, whose crew members include Enson Levoux (played by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Bosco Ostroman (played by Evan Jones) and Donnie Wilson, played by O’Shea Jackson Jr. Here is what Butler and 50 Cent had to say during a roundtable interview with me and other journalists at the New York City press junket for “Den of Thieves.”

When did you first hear about “Den of Thieves” and how were you cast?

50 Cent: I read the script for the first time six years ago. I met Christian [Gudegast] … and he had an idea of what he wanted the film to look like already. Remember “Smokin’ Aces,” with the bright colors. That was the initial look of the [“Den of Thieves”]. I wanted to be in that because I wanted to be in “Smokin’ Aces” too.

When I got a chance to read the [“Den of Thieves”] script, I thought it wasn’t predictable. I can appreciate a heist film, particularly the action excites me. And then it had a whole feel where there was more to the characters. A lot of times in a heist film, it’s just the film.

Butler: I read the script way back then as well. I was good friends with Christian, and we were already working on a few projects, some of which he had already written. In the middle of this, he said, “I have this script I want you to read called ‘Den of Thieves.’” It was actually back in 2012.

It was at time when I think I had just finished “Olympus Has Fallen,” and I was being very lazy with scripts. I let it sit there for three months. I had two scripts. My agent kept asking me, “Have you read ‘Den of Thieves’ and have you read this other movie?” I said, “No, I haven’t read it.” And I finally read it, and So I called my him and said, “This is so good! Why didn’t you tell me?” He said, “I have been telling you for three months to read the script!”

Even though I was good friends with Christian, I found myself being nervous when I went to see him. Originally, he wanted me to play Merriman. I love the role of Merriman. [He’s like] Steve McQueen, as he doesn’t say much, but he’s so captivating. But “Big” Nick was my guy, and I knew that was the role that I had to try and score and really get my head into. So I went, and I found myself getting nervous and stuttering. And so, from that day, he said, “You want ‘Big’ Nick? ‘Big’ Nick is yours.”

But the problem after that was that it took a while for the movie to get made. It was with a certain company, and they weren’t doing particularly well. The second they got out of the picture, we were ready to make the movie. And it all just unfolded, and we got a chance to tell this incredible story.

Gerard, you mentioned that you were nervous about meeting with Christian to talk about the script, but people have seen you do a lot of badass action films before. Why were you nervous? Was it because the character was hard to read?

Butler: No, it was just complete immaturity on my part. The second I like something, I get nervous. Human nature. I just really wanted to do it. And suddenly, the negative part of my head starts saying, “Oh, I’m sure Christian probably has somebody else in mind for the role.

But what it literally turned out to be was six years of us talking about. When you try to make a movie, it doesn’t mean that you’re trying to make it every day; it comes back around every few months Christian and I had so many dinners where we would sit and talk about this movie and what “Big” Nick and what he meant.

And I remember Tucker Tooley, who’s one of our producers, said, “You and Christian have talked this movie to death.” I said, “I don’t remember! It’s been six years of these discussions!” But sure enough, I did remember. I would get so amped up.

He’s made such a great movie. Christian’s such a fantastic director. He explains things to you because he understands. That’s one of the reasons why the script is so great, because the way he describes things in the script, you’re there. It’s actually very easy to perform because he leads you so beautifully.

One time, he was explaining to me this particular part of the story about “Big” Nick, and we were in Benihana, sitting and talking. [Christian] said to me, “See the way you’re holding that glass? That’s ‘Big’ Nick.” The more I would talk to him, the more I would start to get into ‘Big’ Nick. I then started eating what I thought was raw fish, and I’m eating the whole plate.

I’m chewing and thinking, “This is quite chewy for raw fish.” I’ve been doing it for about 40 minutes, and when I’m on my second plate, he said, “What the fuck are you doing? That’s chicken.” I had eaten two plates of raw chicken, which was supposed to be cooked [at the table]. When the chef came to start cooking it, he was like, “Where’s the chicken?” I had eaten it all, being “Big” Nick!

How do you prefer to be prompted in your scenes by directors?

50 Cent: I like for them to know what they’re asking me to do. Sometimes, the director will give notes, or they’ll explain it, and it won’t be as informative as you’d like them to be. Make an adjustment, fine. But please let me know exactly what the adjustment is. The guys get into the roles so well … We trained ahead for two weeks. The physicalities and movements were all down pat by the time we got there …

I’d sit at the monitor and watch … So I was watching the movie instead of being in it. I was having so much fun at the same time. I appear to be a workaholic because I’m enjoying myself. We made it fun. We were enjoying ourselves the entire time, but it is still technically work.

Butler: What was amazing was that every single person who was cast in this film is the ultimate alpha male. If you look at this man here [he gestures to 50 Cent] and me, Pablo, O’Shea—we’re all big guys with a lot to say. And yet, you couldn’t see guys bond more in this movie, and everybody having a great time together, and treating each other with a lot of respect, and giving their all. So it was a lot of fun.

Then you had Christian, who—even though it was his first time directing a movie—the guy’s a master. It was like he had done it a thousand times. What I loved about him is that he loved to see people experiment—anything we did that was different.

I was actually the boring one, in a way. I was like, “We already have a long script. We already have a phenomenal script. Sometimes, let’s not have people experiment too much, and get too far away from I know works great on the page.” But I love that he had the confidence to encourage us to do that.

50 Cent: A lot of times, writer/directors, especially on their first time, they fall in love with their words because they spend so much time on it. For six years, we kept going over it. When you write a song, it has your instincts involved … and it could be done in 30 minutes and ready for the world to listen to it.

With a film project, they write it over and over … until they try to make it perfect. When you actually start doing it, your performance choices allow you to make more adjustments … That’s what Christian did really well—he actually watched and listened and gave directions at different points that allowed us to make it great.

How important do you think it is to make your characters more likeable?

50 Cent: I think that it’s important to this story, how the characters have been developed and how you perceive the character. Sometimes I’ll play a guy who is so nasty. Like in the “Power” series, I play Kanan. Less is more. If you don’t see him love anything, you don’t have compassion for him; he’s a monster. If [audiences] don’t see things they can relate to, they don’t accept the character.

Butler: I think that a lot of the most memorable characters are the ones who are messed up. They’re discolored or a bit lost; they can be venomous or bullies. There are a million different colors you can have. I think you can judge that and put it against an audience but make sure you don’t judge and step too far, because there are certain things a character can do where you can lose an audience, and you don’t want to do that. And that was the danger with my [“Big” Nick] character with his unfaithfulness and coming home late in the house. He’s still the lead character and the protagonist and you want to be on his side somewhat

But you can also give truthful assertion of who he is. He’s a cop, and at the end of the day, he’s trying to bring down the bad guys, but that involves some low-life activity. And he’s made the decision that “If I’ve got to beat the worst, I’ve got to be the worst. I’ve got to be worse than them. I’ve got to eat those guys up.”

And that takes a toll on your life, you know? That’s what comes out. A lot of Nick is just playing at being a bad guy. At the end of the day, he’s kind of a big kid. And sometimes, in those moments alone, you realize that he really finds it hard.

Is he a classic definition of what it means to be a man? He’s not a man. He’s a terrible father. He’s a terrible husband. He’s not necessarily a man of his word. However, he’s good at his job, he’s loyal amongst his friends. But other than that, he’s an addict, he’s full of fear, and he’s such a damaged human being. And then at times, it comes up and bites him in the ass. And in the end., he’s just a scared kid.