by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
2018’s Den of Thieves was a movie I completely missed. I had heard mostly positive reviews along the lines of, “Its surprisingly good for a January movie,” which is not exactly a ringing endorsement. But as January movies go, to hear even a little positivity was enough for me to add it to my watchlist. Then, in a weird bout of oppositional defiance, I proceeded to not watch it for six years. When it would jump streaming services, I would be sure to add it to my watchlist but would always find an excuse to not watch. So when I learned that a sequel was coming out and saw that no one wanted to review it, I thought, “This is your chance! You can finally cross this one off the ol’ watchlist!” And I am really glad I did. Den of Thieves is a really well-constructed heist movie, with an interesting premise, fun yet serious tone, intriguing characters, and a heist that will keep you glued to the screen and completely locked in. After watching, my interest in the sequel rose quite considerably, and with Christian Gudegast returning to both write and direct, along with the same production studio, I was fairly certain that the sequel should be able to at least live up to the first one. Unfortunately, like Obi-Wan thinking he could train Anakin to be a Jedi as well as Yoda… I was wrong.
Den of Thieves: Pantera is the unnecessarily long, two-hour and 24-minute, followup to the original which puts our lead characters, Nicholas “Big Nick” O’Brien (Gerard Butler) and Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), back together, but this time, rather than a fun game of cat and mouse, it’s more of a rom-com buddy heist movie where they decide to put aside their differences and work together for one big European score! (Diamonds… not the other kind of score; its not that kind of Eurotrip). To be honest, the opening of the movie had me pretty locked in. It opens with a quick, moderately clever heist to showcase Donnie’s skill as a thief, which piqued my interest. I was then immediately put on the defensive, because we briefly touch base with Nick and his divorce proceedings. The one downside of the first movie was its insistence on including his family drama. There was an orgy of evidence that Nick was a bad guy without having to drag the runtime down with unnecessary drama, so I was relieved when this point was never touched on again.
I also really like how its been a few years, and the authorities still don’t even think that they were robbed in the first movie. Their insistence on rehashing this served to reenforce the idea that Donnie is a master strategist, leading me to be very excited for whatever high concept heist he had planned for this outing.
Sadly, this time around, Gudegast must’ve decided that the more interesting part of a heist movie would be the platonic romance between the two leads, rather than, I don’t know, THE HEIST! This movie’s big heist is just a fancy smash and grab. It takes them pretty much no time to breach the diamond exchange, get in, and get out, with some minor shenanigans to slow them down. And as a result of this incredibly basic and boring heist, the movie decides it needs to be “fancy” and introduce annoying tropes throughout that do nothing but extend the runtime, taking away from the action. The diamond stolen at the beginning belongs to an Italian mafia guy who wants it back. So the mafia finds and threatens our guys to retrieve the diamond. Nick flirts with the only woman on the team, but her ex-boyfriend is also on the team and he’s a bit of a hothead, so he DOESN’T do the heist and “disappears,” only to resurface later to take revenge in the most unexciting car/gun chase put to film. And the heist itself is extended just by having their “girl in the chair” alert them how much time they have, in what feels like half-speed, before the cameras come back on. The entire heist experience is insufferable.
What I do like is the chemistry between Butler and Jackson. Surprisingly, the scenes where they discuss why they do what they do, their fun times at the clurb, and their adorable drunken motor scooter ride through France are all really entertaining. They are an interesting turn from their antagonistic relationship from the first movie, but they surprisingly work, because the charisma and charm of the two leads is enough to carry them through. However, the movie takes advantage of this in a very annoying way. After establishing that they are friends, with slightly more effort than Wicked does with Elfaba and Galinda, the movie tries to put them in situations where they have to get mad at each other. Only to immediately make that fight non-existent. At one point Nick says, “The Mafia is involved? I’m out!” He walks back to his apartment and then is immediately back in. Unnecessary fights like this are so pointless, because if it doesn’t ultimately matter, then why bother when the movie is already over 140 minutes? And on the other side of things, Donnie is NEVER suspicious of the cop who just spent years chasing him trying to bring him to justice. He just accepts that Nick is now forcing his way onto the team, with nothing more than a brief conversation and an f-bomb.
Overall, Den of Thieves: Pantera did two things for me: It made me regret my decision to pick a movie to review solely to cross the first movie off my watchlist, and it made me realize that I don’t quite have a handle on the “i before e except after c” rule. I wrote out “theives” instead of “thieves” every time in this review.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
Den of Thieves: Pantera is currently playing in theaters
You can read more from Nick Ferro, and follow him on Twitter and Letterboxd