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DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA

Starring: Gerard Butler, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Evin Ahmad, Salvatore Esposito, and Nazmiye Oral
Director: Christian Gudegast

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NICK

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Den of Thieves surprised me back in 2018, as it presented a solid action film with interesting characters and an intriguing twist. The follow-up, Pantera, moves away from the action genre for a slow and methodical heist film that just doesn't work as well. Most of Gerard Butler's charm and edge as “Big Nick” remains, but the Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) who was set up in the finale of Den of Thieves, is nowhere to be found. Also absent is the action that made the original so exciting. It’s all a little boring, and production delays aside, there’s no excuse for that.

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ADRIANO

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Den of Thieves 2: Pantera feels like a neutered version of the first one. Don't get me wrong, it’s predecessor isn't anything special either; however, for all its flaws, I still found it to be well-made, with a fun and gritty tone. While this one is still well-made, the grit is exchanged for some goofy, and far less intense, buddy movie dynamics. Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. don't really work that well together, and while the heist itself was entertaining, the film is simply too unengaging and overlong for this sequel to feel necessary.

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AMARÚ

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Den of Thieves 2: Pantera has the blueprint of a 90-minute, January-released, Gerard Butler film: simple and action-packed with entertaining character dynamics. Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. provide plenty of charisma, but there’s an extra hour full of cat-and-mouse plot threads that are sometimes fun, sometimes silly, and always bloated. Without much action, you feel every bit of slog in the nearly 150-minute runtime, but the heist is exciting when it finally arrives. So, while this go ‘round is way too long, if next time we were to get a tight, 90ish-minute entry with Big Nick (Butler) and Donnie (Jackson), I’d be game.

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