Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera’ Review: Gerard Butler Matches Wits Again With O’Shea Jackson Jr. In Familiar But Entertaining Euro Heist Action Flick
In 2018, Den Of Thieves delivered the goods (as a kind of junior version of Michael Mann’s classic Heat, which matched De Niro and Pacino) and was a ballsy attempt to rob the unrobbable Los Angeles Federal Reserve. It did modest but respectable business globally considering its limited ambitions, and that apparently was just enough to justify a sequel. In Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera, Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and company head to Europe for another brazen robbery, this time at the top-security World Diamond Center in Nice, where the cop and the crook join forces to penetrate a thief-proof vault full of valuable deposit boxes with millions of dollars of jewels including an uber-desirable pink diamond stolen from the Mafia who wants it back. It’s complicated.
Ditching the L.A. locations of the first (actually doubled by Atlanta), this turns into a lush European and more international adventure that picks up where the first film left off, when the duplicitous Donnie (Jackson) has outsmarted cop Nick (Butler) during the Federal Reserve robbery, and now a defeated Nick just wants revenge and the money he swears Donnie has. Donnie has headed off to Brussels for a new scheme with a new den of thieves from the Balkans known as the Panthers, teaming with crafty Jovanna (Evin Ahmad) and her cohorts Dragon (Orli Shuka) and Slavko (Salvatore Esposito) on a new heist for a treasure trove of jewels.
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The film opens with a hijacking of a Brussels flight loaded with diamonds before switching gears to Nice, where Donnie sets up shop posing as a businessman and gaining access to office space that will give them security clearance thanks to the connections of Chavra Falcon (Nazmiya Oral), who is looking for some quick cash of her own. Fencing a stunning pink diamond, they are in the money, but have bigger plans than that.
Suspecting Donnie might be involved in the Brussels job, Nick makes his way to France where he joins up with French police chief Hugo Kaman (Yasen Zates Atour) in an effort to see their surveillance footage with the idea it would identify Donnie’s whereabouts, something he doesn’t disclose to the chief when he does indeed spot Donnie.
In no time Nick breaks into a mortified Donnie’s living quarters and confronts him, but surprisingly offers instead to join with him (for a price) and the Panthers to pull off the ultimate heist, a dangerous operation full of peril and nicely executed by returning writer-director Christian Gudegast. This is where the gray area between cop and thief is drawn, and Gudegast has shed some doubt about which side of the law Nick is really on. That guessing game is what helps make this all work despite the familiar trappings of the well-worn genre. The diamond heist sequence is the centerpiece and highlight of the film, but it is by no means the end, and there are literal twist and turns in both the story and in a thrilling car chase across the winding roads in the south of France, a mafia subplot, and a mismatched buddy movie that turns into a cat-and-mouse game sporting several tentacles.
The pink diamond so wanted by the Mafia (led by veteran actor Adriano Chiaramida) and fenced by the Panthers will remind you of course of The Pink Panther, but that is where the comparison stops. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera instead turns out to be an ideal action vehicle for the always watchable and rugged Butler, and a worthy enough sequel to an original that wasn’t all that original to begin with. This one is more effortlessly entertaining thanks to the locations and the stars, especially Butler who is my favorite action star these days. Jackson also is fun to watch, often playing his role, more central here that in the first, with deadpan frustration. The rest of the cast does well, particularly the women, and Atour makes the perfect French cop. Spain’s Canary Islands doubles for Nice quite well, and the cinematography from Terry Stacey fills the bill.
This is what is often called a “January movie,” but as a start to a new year that has not been great so far, it will take your mind off real-world problems for an overlong 2 1/2 hours (just like the first movie) in a way that makes it worth the price of admission.
Producers are Tucker Tooley, Butler, Alan Siegel and Mark Canton.
Title: Den of Thieves 2: Pantera
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: January 10, 2025
Director-screenwriter: Christian Gudegast
Cast: Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Evin Ahmad, Nazmiya Oral, Salvatore Esposito, Meadow Williams, Swen Temmel, Michael Bisping, Orli Shuka, Rico Verhoeven, Jordan Bridges, Dino Kelly, Fortunato Cerlino, Adriano Chiaramida, Pat Skipper
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hr 24 mins
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