Directed By Christian Gudegast

Starring – Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson, Evin Ahmad

The Plot – Butler returns as Big Nick, this time on the hunt in Europe for Donnie (Jackson) who is embroiled in the dangerous world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia as they plot a massive heist of the world’s biggest diamond exchange.

Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, drug use and sexual references.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025) Official Trailer – Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr.

POSITIVES

Despite the first film not exactly being my kind of action flick, there is quite a laundry list of improvements to this sequel that made it a slight improvement, beginning with the evolving direction from Gudegast, which no longer feels distracting to the appeal of his own product. The seven year itch between films was certainly spent cultivating his craft, as not only does the editing reserve itself much more accordingly in order to clearly and coherently depict the action, but the shift in setting also gives it a big screen appeal that flourishes some breathtaking scenery of the French mountainsides to counterbalance the tensely uncomfortable moments of heist suspension. As to where Gudegast was a major contributor to the problems that plagued my impressions of the series’ predecessor, here he comes back with an execution that feels bigger and bolder than I could’ve ever expected, surmising artistic integrity to the various captures in ways that proved his growth as a commanding storyteller, primarily during the third act climax, which is easily the biggest highlight of the film for me. While the journey getting to the heist itself takes longer than I would’ve preferred, the pay-off feels worthy of the struggles, both with gripping tension and spontaneous challenges in on-site developments that simultaneously keeps the characters and the audience on their toes at all times. Considering the third act of this movie makes up its final fifty minutes, there’s plenty of time to show off just what about this franchise appeals to such a mainstream audience, especially with the intricacies of the sound design playing to the environmental elements and character impulses that maximize the trepidation within the conflict, and even when that conflict elevates to physicality in high-speed chases or on-the-ground tactical assault, Gudegast and cinematographer Terry Stacey dazzle with a complexity of angles and smoothly cerebral motions of the lens that effortlessly immerses audiences in the plight of its protagonists, with the culmination of the meticulous planning by those characters that doesn’t always go accordingly as expected. From there, the shift in morality by Butler’s Nick does lead to a breaking of the ice bromance between he and Jackson’s Donnie that felt like the most rewarding scenes and sequences of the movie, for me, where their opening up towards each other illustrates the kind of depth in backstory that we rarely received throughout the first movie. While their bickering banter does produce well-timed humor deposits that effectively register without sacrificing the magnitude of the movie’s suspense factor, their recollections of their respective upbringings is truly the icing on the cake, painting causes for the effects in the kind of people they eventually became, all the while giving us a greater understanding of the blurred morality that keeps each of them from fitting into these conventional outlines of good and bad that so many of these movies are defined by. It also helps that Butler and Jackson give their all to their portrayals, with impactful presences between them that easily stand out in a movie with such an inferior supporting ensemble to its predecessor. While neither are being asked to do anything outside of their comfort zones with regards to the direction of the material, the charisma and chemistry that each exude simply can’t be overstated to the movie’s integrity, primarily with Butler’s slimy and seedy bravado often clashing with Jackson’s calmy cool and confident demeanor, which brandishes a test of wills that represents the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

NEGATIVES

‘Pantera’ definitely represents a better made film, at least for my money, but not necessarily one that is even half as entertaining as its predecessor, particularly as a result of the decisions made with its overly ambitious run time that continuously tests audience patience. Considering this movie is 139-minutes long, and the first hour-and-a-half of that is used in preparation to the heist, it creates these pockets of boredom to the consistency of the pacing that makes it difficult to remain invested, especially with so many long-winded scenes that feel like the first cut of a post-production edit. While the aforementioned blossoming bromance definitely helped with the moments during this dry spell, a complete lack of tension or action doesn’t make it any easier to combat such a bloated finished product, where even the highest of highs during the third act doesn’t escape unscathed. Despite the movie receiving a much-needed shot of adrenaline during these moments of the script, the predictability of another late-movie twist and long-winded ending take away some of the zip from its appeal, leaving it feeling like it’s beginning a possible third movie, at the same time it’s wrapping up this sequel. I’m certainly not against setting things up for an extension in the franchise, but the teaser towards the future of these characters drowns on for what feels like an eternity, taking away from what was otherwise a satisfying ending, despite a twist that is easily telegraphed from the first movie establishing a precedent for this franchise. The twist doesn’t do a lot of damage, but you can definitely tell by the execution that the production expected this to be some mind-blowing development to the reality of its audience, but I predicted it quite early in the engagement, and with the camera work in the moments leading up to its bombshell unintentionally telegraphing it, based on the placements of characters, it’s definitely inferior to the twist from the first movie, which felt like it rocked the worlds of everyone and everything involved. On the subject of inferiority, the supporting characters this time around pale epically in contrast to those of the first movie, with no semblance of development or personality to the designs that otherwise feel like greedy foreigner characters from every movie set in a foreign land that you’ve ever seen. In writing this review less than an hour after seeing the movie, I find myself stumped to remember anything about their backstories, or even their names, and that’s the biggest glaring example of a script that couldn’t care less about any of them, especially with so much allowance in screen time to properly flesh them out in the ways they did with Pablo Schreiber or Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson, during the first film. Finally, if you’re someone driven by the action and violence of the first movie, you will definitely be disappointed here, as after a full-throttle opening involving an entirely different heist for Donnie’s crew, the film only features two additional action set pieces to satisfy that yearning, and while I previously commended the camera work and editing during these sequences, the extended reality is that their ambitious outlines are grounded to keep them from ever attaining the kind of urgency and vulnerability needed to craft such scintillating overhead drama during instances of physical conflict.

OVERALL
‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera’ is an elevated artistic improvement from its predecessor, in everything from smoothly scenic cinematography to meticulous editing, but its unnecessarily overlong run time contains too much downtime exposition, and not enough scintillating action, leaving the patience of its hardcore audience continuously tested by the overlong preparation of the heist taking up an overwhelming majority of the proceedings. Despite this, the refreshingly new angles of bromance buddy cop comedy help elicit meaningful work in the dynamic duo of Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson, even if the film surrounding their efforts seems preoccupied with predictable twists in planning for an inevitable third installment.

My Grade: 5.9 or D+