Movie Review: ‘Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera’

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Review by James Lindorf
Over the last seven years, writer and director Christian Gudegast has taken a near-complete break from Hollywood. His only credited position since 2018 was as an executive producer on Gerard Butler’s action movie “Plane.” He has fully returned for his long-awaited sequel to “Den of Thieves,” which made 80 million on a 30 million production budget for Lionsgate. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is now playing everywhere and has earned the studio its first number-one ranking at the weekend box office since November of 2023.

With his divorce finalized, the only chance Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler, Has Fallen Series) has to redeem himself for the events of the last film is to continue his hunt for the final member of the team that robbed The Fed. While Nick has had it rough, Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr., Straight Out of Compton) has been on a winning streak. After a successful stint in London, he has become embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves, catching the attention of the infamous Panther mafia. As Donnie’s team plots a massive heist of the world’s largest diamond exchange, new threats and temptations will set the two on a collision course that will shock everyone.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is a mixed bag with strong production values and acting, but it’s let down by a script that fails to fully utilize these elements. Visually speaking, the film is a total success, beginning with the location. While most of the film is set in Nice, France, with brief cutaways to LA and Sardinia, Italy, it was filmed on the Spanish Canary Islands. Through their use of drones and beautiful lighting, “Den of Thieves 2” is a visual delight from the curving mountainous roads to the sun-soaked beaches and pulsing nightclubs. This is all on display in the opening action sequence, inspired by the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist.

The second area that falls into the plus side for the film is its acting. This really comes down to three performances. Struggling with his life in LA after the last film’s events and being half a world away from his problems leads Nick to question what he should do with his life. This gives him much more complexity than in the first film, where he was the basic bent but not a crooked cop. Jackson, on the other, gets the fun of playing a bit of the chameleon we often see with high-end criminals and only gets one scene to bring out the emotion with mixed results. The third performance came from Evin Ahmad, a Swedish actress who made her Hollywood debut as the multifaceted Jovanna. Part leader, part seductress, and all bad-ass, Jovanna is captivating, making her underdevelopment all the more upsetting.

There is nothing left to do but get into the film’s bad side. Christian Gudegast appears to be a better director than he is a writer. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is so caught up in creating an intricate plot that it forgets the most important thing about a heist film: the characters. The movie fails to pull you in without clear lines of good vs. bad or the sense of family that has made the Ocean’s and Fast franchises successful. If we cared more about the team pulling off the mission, the tension would be ratcheted that much higher; instead, we are left watching a beautiful but soulless screensaver for two and a half hours.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is entertaining in the moment and has enough strengths that I hope we get to see the sequel they set up in the final moments of this film. However, my detachment towards the characters puts a hard ceiling on the movie’s scoring, ultimately maxing out at a 3.5 out of 5.

Director: Christian Gudegast
Producer: 50 Cent, Gerard Butler, Mark Canton
Screenwriter: Christian Gudegast
Distributor: Lionsgate
Production Co: TT Entertainment, eOne Features, G-Base, Diamond Film Productions
Rating: R (Sexual References|Pervasive Language|Drug Use|Some Violence)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery & Thriller, Action
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 10, 2025, Wide
Runtime: 2h 24m