Den of Thieves has never been a franchise that stands on ceremony. Whether it’s the 2018 or 2025 version, the Christian Gudegast directed flicks just turn on the engines and ‘go go go’. This sequel is no different, starting with smart-mind Donnie (O’Shea Jackson JR) and his new ‘crew’ of Balkans – the Panthers – pulling a diamond heist. And like the first movie, we initially meet Big Nick (Gerard Butler) in Los Angeles, brooding, with something having gone wrong.
Giving itself the name add-on Pantera, Den of Thieves 2 only has Jackson JR and Butler as the names from the first movie that appear in the second, unsurprisingly. With the likes of Pablo Schreiber, 50 Cent, and Dawn Olivieri out of the picture, we get introduced to new characters played by Evin Ahmad, Salvatore Esposito, Orli Shuka, and Stephane Coulon, among others.
What makes Den of Thieves, as a movie series, what it is, is, among others, an insistence on cutting to the chase, one that almost betrays a need for a sub-plot or in-depth look into characters. In the first movie, we know the crew are ex-military, who are no mostly no-nonsense and can shoot and rob. There’s a thing about 50 Cent’s character being a dad, but that doesn’t go anywhere, or stick. We know Big Nick and his LASD team are unruly, borderline offensive law enforcement agents who will fit right in with characters in LA Confidential, and can shoot and bend the law. There’s a thing about Nick trying be a good father having been a horrible husband, but that doesn’t go anywhere, or stick.
Pantera follows that route. There’s a thing about Cleopatra (played by Evin Ahmad) having an ex among the Panthers, and something about a croissant (?), but that’s it. Den of Thieves 2 is very a 9 to 5, labour theory of value, do the work and close for the day heist movie. Very little sub-plot to be had, and very little detours to be taken.
That doesn’t mean this sequel is simply from one point to another, and then the end. Rather, it does manage to find some depth in its characters, without necessarily giving the audience something exactly new or different to look at it. This time, we get to Nick’s inner struggles about his life, and there’s much more depth and time taken to the dynamic between Nick and Donnie.
Den of Thieves 2 also offers some difference in other ways. There’s the European setting, which doesn’t just take Nick out of his environment, but also places him as an outsider, replacing a sense of disdain that came with the familiarity and comfort he had in the first movie, with a guy trying to be endearing by doing stronger drugs and yelling ‘fuck NATO’ with a group of Balkans as a way to elicit likeness.
But does it all work? Does Den of Thieves 2 opting for a different route, especially plot wise, do the business? This sequel focuses more on internal struggle and a kind of heist tension at pulling off the clichéd impossible job. But the thing with that is the clichéd impossible jobs in heist movies and the tension always get resolved, and this movie loses something by ditching the cat and mouse, French Connection-like element, that gave it much of its intrigue in the first place.
Much of the first Den of Thieves movie does have overt elements of masculine performance and unbridled displays of ‘maleness’ (which Pantera does try to rectify by having women characters be more prominent), but the intrigue between Merrimen and Nick’s mind games kind of gives it a more interesting feel. Is it really the case in this sequel between Donnie and Nick? Does it get hampered by the need for a potential plot twist that would come later on?
For production value, this movie still looks the business. For the shoot-out in LA traffic in the first movie, read high-speed gunslinging in porsches, in the border between France and Italy in Pantera. The sound design is still incredible to behold, and the movie does extra well to have fun with its cinematography without cheapening anything.
Not to mention, at the core of it, Den of Thieves 2, like its predecessor, is as fun as it’s hard-hitting. Watching Nick in a new mould kind of works, and the dynamic between he and Donnie isn’t exactly half bad, even if does have as shaky a conviction as the resolution in the first scene where they meet in this sequel. The movie does subject itself to the clichéd whims of a heist sequel, especially, but it still makes for great watch. Never has a franchise that’s seemed so business-like have such fun elements to it.
On About Nothing rating: 7/10.
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