More Fun Than The Original

Den of Thieves 2 is a surprisingly decent sequel that improves upon the original.

PLOT: After his life is ruined in the wake of his reckless behavior, LASD cop Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler) heads to Antwerp to track down his former foe, Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). However, instead of revenge, Nick wants to cash in and joins forces with him to rob the World Diamond Center. 

REVIEW: I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of the original Den of Thieves. It felt like a lame retread of Heat, albeit without any of Michael Mann’s style and substance – but hey, what do I know? Against all odds, the original film was a sizeable hit, so here we are six years later with a sequel, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. I wasn’t expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this slick sequel, which, to me, had a unique, Euro-style vibe that felt fresh in the way its predecessor didn’t.

Set in Belgium, the film revolves around O’Shea Jackson Jr’s Donnie building a European crew to rip off the Antwerp World Diamond Center. Writer-director Christian Gudegast, who returns from the original film, was inspired by a real-life heist that occurred back in 2003. He does a nice job making this a more grounded heist film than usual, with him avoiding the over-the-top elements one might expect in the wake of the Fast Saga, to which this has a few similarities, most notably how Gerard Butler’s character figures into the plot.

In the first film, Butler’s Nick O’Brien was such a comically over-the-top, hyper-macho protagonist that the movie was hard to take seriously, with him coming off as almost cartoonish. Yet, in the sequel, they show that his behaviour had some real consequences, with it costing him his job and his family, with his wife filing for divorce and taking the kids. Thus, the movie has him throw in his lot with Donnie and his gang, opting to help them pull off their heist for a cut that will set him up for life.

Now, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera isn’t perfect, with the biggest flaw in the movie being how quickly Jackson’s Donnie buys Nick’s story and cuts him into the gang. He’s supposed to be a genius-level mastermind, so it’s hard to swallow him taking Nick at his word, considering how few scruples his former antagonist had in the first film. Yet, it does give Butler and Jackson the chance to build some buddy movie chemistry, which, coupled with the Euro-locale, helps make the sequel a lot more fun than the original.

In recent years, Butler’s excelled in making mid-level action films, with his world-weary characters less glamourous and more believable than many other action heroes of note. In a Butler movie, he won’t always have the upper hand on all the bad guys, and despite now being a crook, he’s oddly more sympathetic than he was in the first film. He’s a guy who’s dealing with the consequences of his choices, and Butler plays him with just the right amount of machismo and humour. By comparison, Jackson has less to work with but seems to be having a ball in his buddy scenes with Butler and is convincing as the “brains” behind the heists, with him soft-spoken and cerebral compared to the ultra-testosterone-fueled Nick.

While, just like the original, Den of Thieves 2 is too long (running over 140 minutes), the pacing is tighter, thanks mostly to the fact that it’s much more focused than the original film. In Den of Thieves, Gudegast, in trying to pay homage to Mann, spent too much time on too many uninteresting side characters to give them pathos. He doesn’t get caught in that trap here, with Butler and/or Jackson rarely offscreen. It all builds up to a climactic heist sequence that’s punctuated by a nifty car chase/ shootout that’s very well-executed, even if the movie ends on a note that most action connoisseurs probably already have figured out just based on the trailers.

All said, I enjoyed Den of Thieves 2: Pantera much more than I thought I would. With the sunny European locales and international flavour, it’s the perfect mid-level January release and should prove popular enough among Butler’s fans that I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually get a third movie in the series. It’s surprisingly fun!

7

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