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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.