Army of Thieves is a heist movie that got released on Netflix on 29th October. It’s about a group of people who plans a heist on the legendary safes built by legendary locksmith Hans Wagner (played by Christian Steyer).
The film’s lead Matthias Schweighöfer who is also the director of the film was previously seen in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead as Ludwig Dieter.
The film acts as a prequel to Army of the Dead and tells us the past story of Ludwig Dieter 6 years before the incident of Army of the Dead.
The ending is very intriguing, so we will give you a complete explanation of what happened to Sebastian and Gwendoline at the end.
Army of Thieves Plot: What is it about?
The film starts with a brief history of Hans Wagner and the story behind the legendary safes he built.
Hans Wagner was a legendary locksmith who built the legendary four safes Das Rheingold, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) after the death of his wife and children;
Each of the safes here had a story, and each was more complex and difficult to open than the other.
The safes were named Das Rheingold, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods).
Götterdämmerung was the final safe, the most complex and difficult of the lot.
In the Army of the Dead movie, Ludwig Dieter cracked the safe to retrieve 200 million dollars.
As per the history of the four legendary safes, Once Wagner finished building the safe, he locked himself in Götterdämmerung and had it dropped to the bottom of the ocean.
The film’s lead, Ludwig Dieter, also known as Sabastian (Matthias Schweighöfer), looked up to Hans Wagner from his early childhood.
Sabastian makes youtube videos on safecracking, which no one watches, and to earn his food, he also works at a bank.
Then Sebastian one day discovers that someone on his youtube had left one comment; it was written that if he wants to put his skills to test, he needs to go to a private address to show his skills.
Sabastian was interested in knowing if there were similar people like him in the locality who were interested in safe cracking, so he went to the mentioned place and noticed a competition going on where everyone had to crack a safe within a time duration.
Sabastian participates in the tournament and wins it.
Army of Thieves-Matthias Schweighöfer as Ludwig Dieter or Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert (Image Credit Netflix)How did Sabastian’s life change after meeting Gwendoline?
Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) was also there in the private tournament where she caught Sabastian’s attention.
Soon Gwendoline connects with Sabastian and reveals she is the one who left the youtube comment and invited him to the tournament.
Gwendoline reveals that she is planning a heist on three of the four legendary safes of Hans Wagner, i.e, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), and Siegfried, and as Sabastian knows a lot of Hans Wagner’s work, so she needed his help.
Sabastian was fascinated after hearing about Hans Wagner, The legendary Locksmith.
From his childhood, he has looked up to him as a hero, and as Gwendoline was giving him an opportunity of a lifetime, i.e., deciphering his idol’s legendary creation.
So, he couldn’t refuse and decided to join Gwendoline.
After that, Sabastian meets the rest of the groups who would be executing the heist, first being the hacker Korina (Ruby O. Fee), getaway driver Rolph (Guz Khan), and “wanna be real-life action hero” Brad Cage, whose real name is Alexis (Stuart Martin) but as he was a life-long fan of Hollywood action heroes such as Brad Pitt and Nicolas Cage. Hence, he thought it would be a good idea to rename himself by combining both the names, and that’s why he renamed himself, Brad Cage.
Army of Thieves-Sabastian and Gwendoline (Image Credit Netflix)Why did Gwendoline hire Sabastian?
There were two reasons why Gwendoline hired Sabastian.
- The first reason was their previous safecracker was arrested during one of their last heists.
- Secondly, the safes they are currently targeting are legendary safes of Hans Wagner. And to crack Hans Wagner’s safes, they need someone who has extensive knowledge of Hans Wagner and his works, and Gwendoline came across Sabastian’s youtube channel where Sabastian had uploaded a video where he talked about the 4 legendary safes that Hans Wagner had built,
So, therefore, she decided to hire Sabastian for the job as he had extensive knowledge of Hans Wagner’s safes.
Christian Steyer as Hans Wagner in Army of Thieves (Image Credit Netflix)The First Heist of Hans Wagner’s Legendary Creation “Das Rheingold”
After finally coming to terms with the rest of the team members, the team begins their first operation of the Das Rheingold heist, the first safe.
Their first heist was on Paris, the first heist went smoothly, and the way Sabastian, Gwendoline, and the rest executed the heist was perfect.
After their first heist, Interpol agents Delacroix and Beatrix, played by Jonathan Cohen and Noémie Nakai, became aware that someone was targeting Hans Wagner’s safes based on Delacroix’s previous history with Gwendoline and Alexis, he believes it is them who have become active once again.
In the meantime, after the first heist, Sabastian keeps having recurring dreams about being attacked by the Zombies.
Even in one of the scenes, Korina tells Sabastian maybe what he is dreaming might not be a dream but prophecies.
And that is exactly what happened to Sabastian in Army of the Dead where he locked himself in Götterdämmerung when the alpha Zombie Zeus attacked him from behind.
Army of Thieves Cast (Image Credit Netflix)The Second Heist of “Walküre (The Valkyrie)”: What Happens in the second heist?
The second heist was successful as well but it was much challenging than the first heist.
After the first heist on Paris, things got trickier, and during the second heist, the crew reached Prague, Czech Republic, to crack Walküre (The Valkyrie).
This time Interpol officer Delacroix also anticipated the dates the next heist would be happening, and even they were in Prague to intercept Gwendoline and crew.
This time while deciphering Walküre (The Valkyrie), Sebastian almost messed it up once, but later on, he managed to fix that, but as it took more time for him to crack the safe, the rest of the team had to come up with plan B.
The Plan B was Alexis would go inside the bank and will try to rob the bank and will keep everyone hostage; this was important to divert the security personnel’s attention from monitoring what was happening in the safe.
While this all was going on, Sabastian was finally able to decipher The Valkyrie, and he and Gwendoline grabbed as much money they wanted, but police also arrived this time.
To buy some more time, Alexis started fighting with the police and even got shot on his shoulder during their exit from the bank.
Still, Alexis managed to get into the get-away truck; Gwendoline and Sabastian were also running to get into the car.
Gwendoline was able to get into the vehicle, but Alexis double-crossed Sabastian and pushed Sabastian away from the vehicle.
The latter almost got caught by the police but still managed to escape.
Army of Thieves Stills (Image Credit Netflix)The Third Heist “The Siegfried” : Team Sabastian Vs. Interpol Vs. Alexis and Ralph
After escaping from the police, Sabastian returns to his home and finds Gwendoline and Korina waiting for him; they reveal that they have also ditched Alexis and Rolph, and now they want to plan the final heist to decipher the Siegfried with him.
The Siegfried was kept in St. Moritz Casino Switzerland, and it was the most challenging safe than the other two, so to make this work, they needed to design a perfect plan.
They first contacted the Casino officials and made them believe that they were from Interpol.
They told that Hans Wagner’s previous safes have also been robbed, and hence the thieves would target their casino next to get their hands on Siegfried.
The Casino officials believed in their word of urging them to move the safe to a secure location, hence this time they were successful to get hold of the Siegfried with an armored vehicle.
When real Interpol officers arrived at the casino, they realized that the thieves had already taken safe, and hence Delacroix became even more frustrated.
Interpol then issued a city-wide search operation to catch Gwendoline and Sabastian.
Also, Alexis and Ralph arrived in Switzerland as they planned to sabotage Gwendoline and Sabastian’s plans.
Korina found out about Alexis and Ralph’s plan, and as she is trying to inform Gwendoline, she gets caught by the police, but still, she managed to send one final SMS to Gwendoline “RUN.”
Once the police caught Korina, Delacroix told her to drop her mobile, but Korina managed to destroy it somehow so that they couldn’t get hold of her mobile records.
In the armored vehicle, Sabastian finally managed to crack the Siegfried, and Brad and Ralph also found the location where Sabastian and Gwendoline were.
They had one final confrontation with Gwendoline and Sabastian.
Gwendoline here managed to outwit Alexis and Ralph and handcuffed them at the back of the armored car.
Gwendoline left them there, and the police eventually arrived and found Alexis and Ralph and arrested them.
Army of Thieves-Sabastian deciphering the Siegfried (Image credit Netflix) Army of Thieves Ending Explained: Do Ludwig or Sebastian and Gwendoline End Up Together?
No, Sebastian and Gwendoline don’t end up together in the finale.
In the ending, Gwendoline and Sabastian plan to leave Switzerland via boat, but Delacroix manages to reach there on time.
Gwendoline surrenders to Delacroix but makes a deal with Delacroix to let Sabastian go if she surrenders, and Delacroix agrees.
Sabastian and Gwendoline grew close as the film progressed, they confessed their feelings towards each other at the end.
But it is sad that they don’t end up together.
Alexis/Brad had always been jealous of Sabastian growing close to Gwendoline.
And because of that jealousy, we saw Alexis throwing Sabastian off the car during the second heist.
In the finale, when Gwendoline is arrested and Sabastian leaves the place for good, he finds that Gwendoline has made him a new passport under the name of Ludwig Dieter.
He then promised himself that they would meet Gwendoline in the future for sure where and they will together decipher the Götterdämmerung safe.
The Finale Safe Götterdämmerung which we saw in Army of the Dead (Image Credit Netflix)What Happens to Sabastian after the ending? Is there any mid-credit scene?
Yes, there is a mid-credit scene.
After migrating to the USA, Sabastian opened up a shop named “Gwendoline’s Safe & Lock Co.”
In the mid-credit scene, we noticed Scott Ward (David Batista) and Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) coming to the shop to recruit Ludwig Dieter for the Army of the Dead heist to unlock Götterdämmerung to get the 200 million.
The fourth and final safe was designed using the operas of Richard Wagner’s ‘The Ring Cycle.’
Then we all know what happened to Sabastian in Army of the Dead. He joined Ward’s team to find the Götterdämmerung then he managed to decipher Götterdämmerung. But in the end, he sacrificed himself to save Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick).
He dreamt of the exact dream earlier in the Army of Thieves when Korina said that the dream could be a prophecy, and precisely that has happened in the previous Army of Dead film where Sabastian sacrificed himself to save Vanderohe.
After watching Army of Thieves, we think now that the Army of the Dead finale was somehow a tribute to Hans Wagner.
The reason behind that is Hans Wagner gave his life by locking himself inside the cage, and even Sabastian did the same in Army of the Dead, where he locked himself in the safe with the alpha zombie Zeus.
There is also a possibility that Sabastian could fool Zeus and escape the place before the nuke destroyed Las Vegas.
We think this is highly unlikely, but there is also another possibility based on the title of the next film of the Army of the Dead franchise.
The following film has been titled Planet of the Dead; as the title suggests here, we will see Zombies hitting every part of the world.
So there might be a possibility of Gwendoline and Zombie Sabastian reunion for one last time as it was promised by Sabastian himself that he will certainly meet Gwendoline.
Götterdämmerung blueprint showed at the end of Army of Thieves (Image credit Army of the Dead wiki fandom)
Army of Thieves is available for streaming on Netflix.