By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
When you think of the most successful stars working in Hollywood today, chances are you’d think of any of the major Marvel stars, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and others who headline major blockbusters. The truth is, one tier beneath major franchise films and auteur adult dramas is the realm of the B-movie, lower-budget, lower-scale films that in a different era may have gone direct to DVD. It’s here that Gerard Butler is king, and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, the sequel to the fan-favorite 2018 crime thriller, is on top of Netflix over movies with 6 times its budget.
The Boys Are Back In A Different Town
Gerard Butler is back as Nick “Big Nick” O’Brien, but after the events of the first movie, he’s now divorced and no longer part of the LAPD. O’Shea Jackson Jr. is also back as Donnie, and the film’s opening pays off the tease at the end of the first film, by showing Donnie’s new crew stealing a red diamond in Antwerp, Belgium. Den of Thieves 2 doesn’t keep the two separate for long, and this time, they’re both operating on the wrong side of the law.
As part of the Panthers, an elite crew run by the stunning Jovanna (Evin Ahmad), the two former enemies start to bond, and Nick even admits he’s starting to like Donnie. The Panthers plan to pull off a heist at the World Diamond Center in France, which, like any great heist, is planned down to the tiniest detail in a sequence that will remind you why heist movies are always fun. However, this isn’t Ocean’s 12, it’s Den of Thieves 2, and it can’t be a heist without double-crosses, triple-crosses, and a tease of what comes next.
Gerard Butler Knows Exactly What He’s Doing
When it was first released in 2018, Den of Thieves was tossed aside as just another one of Gerard Butler’s cash grabs, but that sentiment only lasted until audiences saw it in the theater. The 63 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from audiences, significantly higher than the 41 percent rotten rating from critics, tells the entire story: it’s an old-school crowd pleaser. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera doesn’t deviate from the formula, and it doesn’t have to, since this is another picture-perfect “Dad” movie with guns, cops, robbers, and enough style that every time it’s playing in a room, people will stop and watch.
Den of Thieves 2 is also more evidence that Gerard Butler knows exactly what he’s doing. No one would have thought the original would develop a cult following of fans citing it as one of the best heist movies and best crime movies of the 10’s, similar to how it’s shocking to critics that Greenland became a fan favorite with a sequel on the way. Butler did it again with Plane, which is another low-budget action movie that fans have flocked to, and yes, it’s getting a sequel, Ship, in a few years.
There are worse ways to spend a lazy weekend afternoon than firing up Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, for example, watching Morbius. It’s a no-frills heist film aware that all of the twists can be seen coming a mile away, and goes through with them anyway, because the director of both films, Christian Gudegast, who also wrote London has Fallen, knows how to please a crowd and how to leave them wanting more. It’s a simple lesson in show business, but it’s often forgotten by big-budget films determined to prove they’re unique and different, so it’s up to a low-budget, bare-bones film to show the big boys how it’s done.
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is streaming on Netflix.
