Den of Thieves 2: Pantera 2025 Movie Review
Den of Thieves Pantera is the sequel to the first Den of Thieves film from 2018, which took place seven years later. This sequel was again directed and written by Christian Gudegast, who also directed the first film.
Nicholas ‘Big Nick’ O Brien (Gerard Butler) is still pursuing criminal Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) in Europe. This time, Donnie is alone in the diamond trade and is trying to get his hands on a sought-after diamond. Many other diamond thieves are also after this diamond. Nicholas and Donnie must therefore try to trust other diamond thieves undercover, in order to eventually steal the diamond from a heavily guarded vault. However, this diamond hunt also brings the dangerous Pantera mafia after them.
While the first Den of Thieves was a thief of the story of the film Heat, this sequel is also reminiscent of other criminal robbery films. Furthermore, as a viewer you also know more than the characters. Where the undercover agent and the criminal from the first part try to work together with new, different criminals, there is a mutual tension between these characters. They do not know who they can and cannot fully trust, but as a viewer you know this more or less. This way the tension is somewhat lost for you as a viewer.
The final, secret vault robbery is entertaining for fans of criminal robbery films, but this robbery is not that special compared to other robbery scenes from other criminal robbery films. The build-up to the robbery has its entertaining moments, but it does take a bit long and is sometimes filled with unnecessary extra scenes. This only makes the film of almost two and a half hours last longer. After the vault robbery the film seems to be more or less finished, but still goes on unnecessarily longer. This way the film seems to have ended twice, but the story still goes on unnecessarily longer. Sometimes only with scenes that seem to serve more as a build-up for a possible third Den of Thieves film.
Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. Have a good ying yang connection in the film where they try to work together among other, dangerous criminals. After seven years it would have been useful if you had also gotten some catchy background of the recurring characters and their last experience with each other. If you don’t know the first part, or can’t remember it well, you actually know little about the two. So you can care little about the two and then nothing at all about the other characters.
