Den of Thieves 2: Pantera - Sequel to the 2018 Heist Action Movie that is Better Appreciated by Critics though Slightly Less Entertaining for Action Fans

When I saw the poster to this movie in the cinemas, I was quite surprised as I did not think the original was such a big hit that warrant a sequel. Plus we saw it quite long time ago (back in 2018) that my wife and I have completely forgotten the story. Anyway, we were still interested in seeing it in the theaters so we went ahead and do it yesterday. All right, I'll get on with it then.

Brief Story Line

After the events of the first movie, Big Nick (Gerard Butler - Kandahar, Last Seen Alive etc) found that the mastermind of the previous heist on Federal Reserves Bank, Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr. - Long Shot, Cocaine Bear etc) was planning another hit in Europe. After some brief investigation, Nick managed to find Donnie in Nice, France getting ready for a diamond heist.

Nick enlisted a team of ex military forces called Pantera that included Slavko (Salvatore Esposito - Taxi 5, Fargo season 4 etc) and few others, with the help from Jovanna (Evin Ahmad - Who is Erin Carter? mini series etc). Things also gotten complicated with the involvement of Mafia chasing after Donnie.

So what would happen to Nick and Donnie? And how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that both of us did not remember the story of the previous film at all. I only remembered it was about a heist but could not recall anything else, while my wife did not even have the slightest memory of it. Good thing that the original movie was available via online streaming (Catchplay+), so she could re-watch it while I only re-watch the trailer and read through my blog and Wikipedia to remind me. Anyway with such knowledge we were ready to see the film, which was a good thing cause it made us understand the story to this sequel better.

The early part of the movie was not bad, though not too spectacular. Subsequently though the film was moving at a slow pace. It took more than half of the film to reach to the interesting part. Considering it had duration of 144 minutes, that was a really long time. It seemed the movie makers wanted to focus on the odd relationship between Nick and Donnie and hence provided a long screen time of the two of them forming an unexpected close bond. Likely this was the part that made critics appreciate cause this film was receiving better rates than its predecessor.

The heist itself was really fun and suspenseful at the same time even if it might not be as highly sophisticated as other heist movies available. My wife jokingly said, they were doing the heist but she was the one feeling the intensity. And I actually shared her sentiment cause I felt the suspense and enjoyed the methods of the heist. It was also proceeded with some cool action sequence of the well executed car chase through the lovely mountainous scenery. The sound effects were pretty magnificent too giving us additional excited feeling. Like in the first movie, this one also got a bit of twist, though my wife and I were able to guess it. Nevertheless, it had a nice enough ending which hinted of possible plot should they decided to make another sequel. 

Looking at the Box Office performance (at least in its first week of release) and Gerard Butler's comments that he will not wait anymore, I think it's more likely than not that it will have a third film to complete the trilogy soon. Btw, Butler was also credited as one of the Producers along with O'Shea Jackson Jr. together with few others. The movie was still written & directed by Christian Gudegast which would explain the similar style of story telling. Aside from the names I mentioned above, the cast included Nazmiye Oral (One Night Stand etc) as the fencer Chava, Yasen Zates Atour as French police detective Hugo, Meadow Williams (The Boy TV series etc) who reprised her role as Holly and several others. Obviously the most important characters were Nick and Donnie.

Overall to me and my wife, this was a slightly less entertaining movie than the original. We were put off by the long dialogues-centric first half but we enjoyed the heist and action plus the ending. Although it was a little bit fun watching Nick and Donnie bonded, but for us it took a little bit too long and reduced the entertainment value. We were not surprised when few audience who were in the theater got bored and played their handphones frequently (which was disturbing). There was one moment that brought us fond memory as it was shot in a beautiful location where my wife and I had breakfast in Cinque Terre. The other aspects of good sound quality and nice cinematography did make it more enjoyable for us. So if you are looking for a nice enough heist movie set in Europe, then you can give this a try, but you just have to be patient to go through the long first half. Reminder though that if you have not seen the first one, then better do so to give greater understanding and appreciation to this sequel.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars