Movie Review | ‘Den of Thieves: Pantera’
Butler and Jackson Jr. reunite for another satisfyingly muscular, gritty heist thriller
A sequel to Den of Thieves, the 2018 action-heist movie starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as a LA Sheriff and bank robber, respectively, was absolutely not on my bingo card. Not after watching the original, nor as the years trucked on hence. So color me surprised when, while waiting for Nosferatu to start at my local theater, a trailer for Den of Thieves: Pantera started rolling. And consider that coloring pleasant.
The original film was something of a dark horse, one of those under-appreciated gems; well-made, it delivered on the kind of gritty urban chaos, scuzzy, character-driven machismo, and gray morality that makes these kinds of projects get up and go. There was a real gravitas to everything, this sense of realism that — especially nowadays — feels harder and harder to find in a world of slickly-produced, overly-digitized action fare. And the protracted shootout through the LA streets remains a favored slice of action, with its bone-rattling gunfire and a sort of fatalistic tension that can be hard to replicate in a genre where it’s far too easy to slather our heroes in layers of plot armor during the 11th hour. Basically, more Sicario, less Mission Impossible.
Den of Thieves: Pantera opens some indeterminate time after. Jackson’s Donnie Wilson, having escaped the clutches of LA Sheriff Nick O’Brien (Butler), is working with a new crew headed by the cool and competent Jovahnna (Evin Ahmad) where, disguised as police officers, they execute the heist of a rare diamond at an Antwerp airport hangar. Nick, meanwhile, hit with a divorce and put on leave from the force, is obsessed with finding Donnie and eventually makes his way to France after catching wind of his being there. And so, it seems, the hunt is on. Round two of this cat-and-mouse game has begun, with the streets and backhills of Nice, France set to become the new playground for their antics.
Except this sequel, written and directed by Christian Gudegast (who directed and wrote the original), has a little more on its mind than simple expectations. Pretty soon, cat-and-mouse turns into buddy-duo hijinks. Butler and Jackson Jr.’s chemistry in the original film was one of the highlights there, and here you’d never guess it’s been 7 years since the two last shared the screen.
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Butler feels born to play Nick, leveraging his rugged charms, sardonic wit, and intimidating framework to great effect. Nick is as morally gray as ever, a somewhat-scummy, kind of unlikable guy who sometimes feels less honorable than the criminals he chases. Yet, Butler brings a soulfulness to the character that has often been the secret weapon of the actor’s repertoire; like Robert Downey Jr. did with Tony Stark, Butler achieves this kind of world-weary self-awareness — Nick is a man that knows exactly who and what he is, and why his life has gone the way it has. He operates on this precipice of self-deprecation and thuggish nastiness that signifies a palpable and barely held-back nihilism that makes him the kind of trainwreck who’s entertaining to watch but would be heartbreaking to embody.
Jackson Jr., meanwhile, brings a cool, collected intellect to his street-wise and heist-smart criminal caperer, Donnie. Despite being on the opposite side of the law, Donnie feels far more comfortable in his skin than Nick, never once eliciting any measure of his new buddy’s nihilism or self-destructive tendencies. His baggage is all external, the decisions that led to his criminal enterprising based around good intentions fueled by an addiction to the unique kind of puzzle solving that comes with the heist-life. Yet Jackson Jr. knows when to play Donnie as a man outside of his element, like when faced with the kind of violence he can’t think his way out of. There’s no overblown braggadocio or unrealistic portrayals of machismo; he’s not one to lose his cool, but he’s no superhuman outclassing every opponent, either. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the over-tough protagonist one might expect from this kind of movie, and adds to the realism coded within the film’s DNA. It also lets Jackson Jr. play his character with a few more layers, giving him the opportunity to flex his acting chops. Most importantly, he has what it takes to carry his scenes whether alone or alongside Butler.
The rest of the cast, comprised of heist-homies, bank-buddies, and law-lads alike, are all good enough in their respective roles, if not exactly memorable. But, the lifeblood of this movie, like its predecessor, flows from its leads, and they are more than equipped to deliver on all the goods.
Echoing the muscular capabilities of their actors, Gudegast and cinematographer Terry Stacey deliver a hulking film that, despite its often sunny backdrops and high-class bank interiors, eschews the overly-produced glitz usually found in globe-trotting actioners a’la The Fast & The Furious and later-era Bond films for a beautifully gritty, tactile experience that commands the attention of all our dubious senses. One can practically smell the stale cologne and sweat; the beer-addled breath; the grit built up in the corners of sleepless eyelids.
You can feel the weight of body armor pressing down on stress-tight chests, or the whip of warm night air and kick of an AR’s stock as shooters exchange fire on vacant French roads. Helicopter blades beat over frothing plains of steel-blue ocean. Cars impact with gut-wrenching force along winding, scrub-covered mountain passes. There is a feeling of realness to this movie that I found simply intoxicating. No fuzzed out edges, visually-muddy setpieces, or rubbery animation; everything is dialed in to elevate the characters and their world’s reality — and thus, our connection to it as viewers.
Despite a rather slow-burn design that sees very little in the way of action until the last 1/3 of the movie, Gudegast makes the most of the film’s 144 minutes by staging entertaining interactions for our cast, like a drunken night at a club followed by some late-night shwarma heart-to-heart, or a bit of aux-cord shenanigans as Donnie and his heist-mates bicker and bond over the music selection during their prep-time. The director/writer also puts a lot of emphasis on the heist details, taking much of the film’s runtime to establish and elaborate on the group’s big steal.
In less capable hands this could feel overlong or maybe even hammy, crammed with empty-calorie dialogue and tech mumbo-jumbo. Instead, he keeps things lively and identifiable for the average moviegoer. Never once did I lose track of what the team’s goal was, nor who their direct opposition was. There is a subplot involving some mafia hitmen and a somewhat blink-and-you’ll-miss-it addition of a rival gang that can feel a tad lost amidst the heftier moving and shaking. Luckily, all the important parts land and by the end even most of the secondary elements resolve themselves in satisfactory-enough ways that make a possible sequel an entertaining prospect.
While enough has been said about the proliferation of sequels, remakes, and franchise filmmaking in a Hollywood, it’s nice to see a solid movie like Den of Thieves get a second chance with audiences via a well-crafted follow-up. Managing to expand on the narrative without losing control of the grounding or scope which made the original so much fun, Den of Thieves: Pantera is that rare sort of sequel that worries less about upping antes and instead simply gives fans more of what they may have loved from before. If you weren’t a fan of the original, I don’t know if this will be enough to convert you — but if you’re a fan of Butler, Jackson Jr., or maybe just pining for the days when movies felt like something, then maybe this is for you.
