Den of Mediocrity
When the original Den of Thieves arrived in January 2018, it looked like a Bad January Movie. It had actors who aren’t usually in very good movies—Gerard Butler, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson—and a director (Christian Gudegast) best known for being the son of soap opera actor Eric Braeden.
But Den of Thieves—an L.A.-set crime movie based around a sophisticated heist of the Federal Reserve, and featuring some surprising twists—was more fun than it first appeared, even if it stole most of its ideas straight from Michael Mann’s Heat. The 2018 film did fairly well at the box office and then, in the months and years after, became huge on Netflix, much the way an unheralded film used to build up an audience through repeated cable TV viewing.
And now there’s a sequel, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, which heads to Europe for more heist fun, with a side of double-crosses. Call it Den of Thieves’ European Vacation. Gudegast is back as writer and director, with Butler and O’Shea Jackson returning, after the majority of the first movie’s cast was wiped out by the end. They’ve been replaced mostly with international talent, as the production has shifted to the Canary Islands, dressed up to resemble Nice, France. Also, juggled by various studios throughout its development, the sequel is being distributed by Lionsgate, rather than STX.
The film has some of the elements that worked in the first Den of Thieves, especially the banter between Butler and Jackson, and effective plot twists. But while the first film was a straightforward battle between unconventional teams of cops and crooks, the sequel is more convoluted. Also, the big heist itself is slow, and some of the action sequences, most notably a late chase scene, are plagued by the use of handheld cameras.
The first Den of Thieves ended with Donnie (Jackson), who we’d been led to believe was a passive cooperating witness, emerging as the mastermind and winner. As the new one begins, Nick (Butler), the drunken, divorced cop-on-the-edge who looks, behaves, and moves like 2006-era Mel Gibson, heads to Europe to pursue his foe and also for some fish-out-of-water humor. And to answer the question of why a guy from the LA. Sheriff’s Department would have jurisdiction in Europe, the film solves that with one line of dialogue, revealing Nick was “deputized” as a U.S. marshal in an old case.
Donnie, posing as a West African named Jean-Jacques, has assembled an international group of criminals to rob a jewelry safe, one meant to take place when all the security guards are distracted by a soccer match. The movie’s best conceit is that once Nick reaches Donnie, he opts not to arrest him, but join him. We’re meant to ask: Is this a Fast and Furious situation, where Paul Walker’s character was a policeman in the first movie, joined the criminals in the second, and eventually everyone forgot he was ever a cop? Or is he undercover?
Unfortunately, too many characters aren’t well-developed, and some Mafia guys are thrown in, who are after certain jewels from an earlier heist, to complicate matters further. I don’t doubt that Den of Thieves 2 will find an audience, play well on Netflix, and lead to more sequels. But it’s a step down from the first one.