In the eleven years since
300 made Gerard Butler a superstar complete with an iconic catchphrase ("THIS! IS! SPARTA!"), I've never found him to be a particularly memorable actor. I don't mean this as a slight against Butler as a person (he seems friendly enough in interviews, never heard of any scandals associated with him), but as an actor, he always comes off as generic and wooden. Sans his surprisingly effective voicework in the
How To Train Your Dragons movies, there's no trace of personality or energy to be found in his turns in movies like
Olympus Has Fallen, Geostorm or
Gods of Egypt. With all that in mind, imagine my shock upon watching
Den of Thieves and thoroughly enjoying his manic turn as a bad cop who seems to have always just come back from snorting immense amounts of cocaine.
