Army Of Thieves Story: This prequel to Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ sees how Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) gets into the criminal world with his safecracking skills.

Army Of Thieves Review: One of the breakout characters in the ‘Army of the Dead’, Ludwig Dieter, gets his origin story. Although we first meet him as Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert (Matthias Schweighöfer), a bank teller obsessed with safecracking as a hobby. When he isn’t sitting at the counter of his mundane bank job, he makes videos on the history behind some of the most secure safes in the world. Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) notices one of his videos and recruits him to join her team as they take on some of these complex safes. However, the fumbling and extremely skittish Sebastian must quickly adapt to transform into Ludwig Dieter.

Besides featuring as the lead, ‘Army of Thieves’ is also directed by Matthias Schweighöfer, who stole quite a few scenes from his co-stars in the Zack Synder film earlier this year. This prequel largely relegates the zombie event to the backdrop. It’s a typical heist film featuring a ragtag team who take on seemingly impossible challenges with a personally invested cop at their heels. Schweighöfer knows this and focuses on building his role as Sebastian. He’s undeniably likeable in front of the camera and brings crackling energy to his performance. Sebastian passionately presents the intricate lore behind the creation of the safes, courtesy of Hans Wagner. This makes some of the film’s expository dialogue easier to bear, but that becomes a problem with a few other actors. Thankfully, Schweighöfer’s chemistry with the equally affable Nathalie Emmanuel works really well. Since they spend a reasonable amount of screen time together, they make a good pair to root for. While the rest of the cast is decent, none are particularly memorable due to the uninspired script.

Behind the camera, Schweighöfer envisions the film with a glossy sheen, and cinematographer Bernhard Jasper delivers some great visuals. This is evident with the well-crafted action scenes and beautiful showcases of the vaults with their inner workings. But they aren’t enough to improve this boilerplate heist screenplay. The film’s length doesn’t favour it either, with pacing issues in the second act. As a result, we’re left with a somewhat unnecessary prequel that doesn’t add much value to the ‘Army of the Dead’ franchise, although it further establishes Matthias Schweighöfer’s commendable talents.