Some of the best films of the last decade are of the crime ilk. No doubt a genre that lends itself to some of the best films cinema has to offer and a space where the most accomplished directors operate — Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Michael Mann — the crime genre is loaded with talent. But, even under the covers of massive releases, some of the best work gets swept under the rug.
While the films vary in size, the quality is never lacking. Some crime films have a massive budget, but don’t find their audience, and then films of a lower budget with a small distributor don’t always find the word of mouth it deserves. That said, given the internet, it’s easy to find a platform to talk about those films. Here are 10 of the most underrated films of the last decade.
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9 The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
RLJ Entertainment
A bone-chewing, tension-crackling thriller that pits a paranoid group of hair-trigger militia men against each other sets the stage for Henry Dunham’s impressive debut film: The Standoff at Sparrow Creek. After a mass shooting at a police funeral, a Northern Michigan militia man becomes the chief suspect. Calling each other to meet at their secret bunker, led by an always impressive James Badge Dale, the crew tries to figure out the shooter. Equal parts Reservoir Dogs and 12 Angry Men as the men began shouting each other down, tempting each other’s fate, the film explodes with quiet tension. Shot in an eerie low-light setting, Dunham makes excellent use of his minimal space to craft a thriller with conspiratorial dread hanging in every frame and piece of dialogue.
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8 Lowlife
IFC Midnight
A delirious adrenaline ride through the sun-soaked canvases of Los Angeles, Lowlife is an entertaining ensemble piece in the vein of Pulp Fiction that pieces its Frankenstein narrative together with intricate and comedic glee. As a criminal kingpin rounds up illegal immigrants as pawns in his black market, organ-selling scheme, three disparate characters come into focus. All intertwined by one kidney. The violence goes full splatter, and director Ryan Prows uses practical effects to imbue a darkly comic tone that adds another layer to the already nasty criminal underworld. Lowlife is a low-budget thrill ride that provides a plethora of gasps and laughs.
7 Den of Thieves
STXfilms
Den of Thieves is a heist film deeply indebted to Heat. First-time director Christian Gudegast crafts his version of a dirty, campy B-movie crime thriller as cops and criminals go to war with one another while still affording each other a professional courtesy. Den of Thieves stars Gerard Butler in all of his divorced cop, sweaty, fast-food-eating glory as he tries to take down one of Los Angeles’ most dangerous and crafty gangs of bank robbers. Gudegast exhibits a clear penchant for macho-laden dialogue that made so much of Michael Mann’s work great, ingratiating the audience into the dirty world of LA degeneracy. Pablo Schreiber and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson also star as two of the bank robbers, chewing scenery, getting by on their version of criminal ethics. The film’s elaborative final bank heist evolves into a a massive shootout, turning the Los Angeles freeway into an epic shooting gallery, cementing Den of Thieves as an enthralling heist film.
6 Cold in July
IFC Films
A nasty meditation on revenge and salvation, looking to rid the world of its weaknesses, Cold in July opens as a welcome throwback to the old neo-noirs of the 80s, with neon-soaked colors, hard shadows, and a heavy synth score, before suddenly shifting into a throwback splatter fest of vengeance. With an incredible trifecta of Michael C. Hall, a scene-stealing suave sheriff played by Don Johnson, and a mean bastard of menace with Sam Shepard, the film, directed by Jim Hickle, constantly shifts the narrative from murder mystery to corrupt sheriffs, to rid the world of pure evil when related by blood — without missing a beat. Cold in July is as mean a picture as it gets.
5 Dragged Across Concrete
Lionsgate
A novelistic approach to the dirty cop genre as the meticulously crafted, slow, methodic direction of S. Craig Zahler painstakingly paints life as a cop on the low end of the economic spectrum, Dragged Across Concrete is the director going to balls to the wall in his now patented aesthetic. Starring Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson as two cops caught in the crossfire of a politically correct culture they detest — mainly because of their stereotyping and over-excessive force — are brilliant as they begin to detach from the work they’ve been doing their whole life. Getting caught up in a criminal master plan to rob a bank, the two decide to stake it out and the money for themselves. Zahler’s direction moves at a glacial pace, but his use of violence is brutally glorious, showing a world where the cops and criminals are closer in moral alignment than they think.
4 Killing Them Softly
The Weinstein Company
A dreary, nightmare depiction of the ires of capitalism crushing desolate towns and leaving no remorse between low-level criminals, Andrew Dominik’s vision of America is one of enormous disparity and desperation. Killing Them Softly is Dominik’s follow-up to his western masterpiece Jesse James. The director teams again with Brad Pitt, deconstructing his star gravitas to play a darkly, smooth but greasy hitman hanging out in bars and playing the criminality with a twisted comedic wit. The film has a star-studded cast of screw-ups and all-time criminal schmucks. None more than the sympathetic turn from Ray Liotta, whose heist gone awry becomes the dark center of the film’s narrative. Dominik has always been an incredible stylist, turning rain-drenched murders into five-minute ballets, and Killing Them Softly sings its anti-capitalist message from the Obama era into oblivion.
3 Widows
20th Century Fox
One of the most gifted directors to emerge in the last two decades, British filmmaker Steve McQueen proved to be a naturally talented visual storyteller, releasing a trio of films — Hunger, Shame, and 12 Years A Slave — to much acclaim. Teaming with Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn, McQueen delved deep into the political ramifications of Chicago’s criminal underworld with Widows. Picking up where their dead husbands failed their households, Viola Davis leads a badass team of women to pull off one last heist that her deceased husband (Liam Neeson) left behind. Featuring magnetic performances from everyone in the cast, including Daniel Kaluuya as a scene-stealer side boss to his brother’s (Brian Tyree Henry) political aspirations, commanding control of his gang with violent intimidation. McQueen’s film intertwines the sociopolitical consequences of corrupt politicians running a big city whose demographics are changing while also telling a compelling heist story. Widows is a gem.
2 Under the Silver Lake
A24
One of the great neo-noirs of the last 20 years and one of the great conspiracy thrillers, David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake is a hazy, narcotic traverse through the bourgeois, pop-cultural ephemera of the elite West Coast hills. With a never-better Andrew Garfield as a jobless stoner who, instead, investigates secret messaging he believes to be propagated by the Illuminati, the film is a hilarious but thrilling ride. Also operating under the banner of satire, Mitchell uses our self-absorption to investigate the hazy mystery of a landscape that houses the famous. Consistently a homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the film is never short on delving deeper into the mysterious abyss of East Los Angeles while sustaining a fun aloof sense of humor.
1 Blackhat
Universal Pictures
Michael Mann’s version of what could essentially be a James Bond movie is a hyperactive, technically sophisticated diatribe on the dangers technology poses and the weaponry necessary to combat new digital terrorism. It stars Chris Hemsworth as Hathaway, an imprisoned hacker who must help international government agents track down a group of dangerous criminals. Not only does Hathaway play by the classical Mann codes of labor-intensive discipline and quotes you could hang on your fridge. The film features nasty hand-to-hand combat, blood spatters, beautiful digital photography, and shootouts staged that show Mann has never lost his touch. Blackhat is a crime epic that remains wholly underrated.
