DEN OF THIEVES: PANTERA - Mark Reviews Movies

Den of Thieves: Pantera, Lionsgate

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | January 10, 2025

Den of Thieves: Pantera might seem like an improvement on its 2018 predecessor. How much of that feeling, though, comes down to the fact that writer/director Christian Gudegast's sequel is decidedly different than the original?

Den of Thieves told a familiar story of generically bad cops and fundamentally bland robbers doing their adversarial business in Los Angeles, but the follow-up is almost entirely about a heist in European diamond center. Once the centerpiece sequence arrives, one might forget both how long it takes the movie to get there and how little we actually learn about these characters along the way.

The second part is inexcusable at this point, especially in the case of our dual protagonists—perhaps-former Los Angeles Sheriff's Department detective "Big" Nick O'Brien (Gerard Butler) and Donnie Wilson (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), the man who was revealed to be the secret mastermind behind the robbery at the center of the previous movie. Both installments are over two hours long, and both characters were at or very near the center of each movie.

Here, at least, the two share a brief bit of back story explaining why each one does what he does—hunt criminals and keep seeking out more difficult heists. It might be the one time across both movies that the characters don't come across as broad clichés or pawns within Gudegast's plotting. To be sure, they're still clichés, even within that scene, but the tone of the moment is so quiet and relaxed that it stands out for the honesty and vulnerability on display.

This is generally a quieter and more patient movie than its predecessor, too, and that surely counts for something. Take this installment's introduction to Nick, the determined but brash and often abusive head of a major crimes unit the first movie. In this one, we first find him in the bathroom of a courthouse, holding finalized divorce papers and taking out his now-impotent rage against a hand dryer. It's not clear if Nick has lost his job, since he's still looking into the robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank in L.A., has plenty of law-enforcement contacts who still treat him as one of their own, and gets some cooperation from a local police task force upon his arrival in Nice, France.

Nick's current career status really doesn't matter for the plot. It has him tracking Donnie to France, following the criminal's theft of a rare diamond from the mafia in Belgium, and, with the cop's life a shambles, asking Donnie to join his crew on whatever heist he has planned next. Donnie accepts Nick, but considering just how smart he is and the way he orchestrated so much in the last movie, it would be downright silly if this criminal mastermind actually does trust Nick, especially after the cop says directly that he can't be trusted.

Anyway, Donnie's plan is to rob the vault of an exclusive, heavily guarded diamond center, using a team of thieves who might as well have been written out of the first draft for as little impact as they have. Nick flirts with Jovanna (Evin Ahmad), the woman who has recruited the team, and gets into a fight with her ex-boyfriend Marko (Dino Kelly), who's one of the robbers, but otherwise, the thieves get the necessary equipment in order and breeze through the plan for getting into the vault. Nick's police background is vital, which is so convenient that surely it must be part of the scheme, or else, Gudegast's screenplay isn't nearly as clever as it expects us to believe it is.

Nick and Donnie do bond a bit, which is refreshing after all of the bombast of the first movie, and once the heist arrives (in such quick fashion that it's a shock anyone is prepared for it), the resulting sequence is competently staged. The quiet patience of the story, which almost makes the heist planning feel secondary, continues through the sequence itself.

The thieves have to time their movements with the cycle of security cameras appearing on monitors to the guards, keep their actions on a tight schedule, and speak and move so quietly that the ambient noise of air circulating through the building is the loudest thing on the soundtrack for long stretches. If we actually cared about these characters and why they're doing this job, there might have been some legitimate tension here, but Gudegast's smart use of sound—especially its absence—and contriving of assorted close calls make for a decent bit of heist action. Even a subsequent combination of a chase and shootout through tunnels and on winding mountain roads lets the action speak for itself.

Considering just how long it takes for the movie to get to that action, it's surprising how succinctly arranged it is. Before that, however, Den of Thieves: Pantera spins its wheels and doesn't offer more than the bare minimum of story or character development.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products