Den of Thieves: Pantera (2024) is directed by Christian Gudegast and stars Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Evin Ahmad, Salvatore Esposito, Orli Shuka, Cristian Solimeno, Nazmiye Oral, Mark Grosy, Joshua Gabriel Liege, Dino Kelly, Fortunato Cerlino, Jordan Bridges, and Adriano Chiaramida. This sequel initially follows Big Nick (Butler) as he attempts to find and arrest Donnie (Jackson Jr.) after his escape at the end of Den of Thieves (2018). When Nick eventually tracks him down, his growing disillusion with law enforcement urges him to switch sides and blackmail Donnie into including him in his next heist: Robbing the world’s largest diamond exchange in France. When their plan eventually puts them in hot water with the infamous Panther mafia, their job becomes even more deadly than before. Donnie and Nick are thus forced to set aside their rocky past in order to pull off the seemingly impossible.

Unlike the first film which featured a handful of well-drawn side characters, this is more of a two-man show between Butler and Jackson. This ends up being a mixed bag because although Gerard Butler once again has a ton of fun with his role, Jackson is just plain and simple not a very good actor. Most of the time, he essentially just plays himself. However, as soon as the script asks him to show off a little range, he’s distractingly bad. As for Butler, he’s pretty much the best part of this movie. Regardless of how weak this sequel may be, it’s nice to revisit what in my opinion is his best role. The character is the perfect balance of uncomfortably scummy, disarmingly hilarious, and irrationally sympathetic. The material nicely compliments his strengths as an actor, and if the studio does eventually decide to make a third film (which they shouldn’t), he’ll be the number one draw to get my ass back in a seat. Regardless of how fun Butler is, he’s unfortunately unable to make up for how forgettable everyone else is. I struggle to remember a even single member of Donnie and Nick’s crew – something that is one of the strongest aspects of the first film. Heist films naturally achieve a higher level of tension when we actually know the people heisting. 

Although the characters are mostly disappointing, the film’s biggest blunder is its handling of heist sequences. Similar to the first film, the entire final hour focuses on one big heist. The thing is, it’s written to be so frustratingly convoluted, that I gave up. It also doesn’t help that the lead-up to this heist does almost nothing to make us care about the various characters. Nick and Donnie don’t end up going through any kind of significant arcs which causes the film to feel pointless/stagnant outside of delivering a straightforward heist film. Instead of an ending that means something to the characters, we get one that shamelessly sets a third film (God, I hope that doesn’t happen). 

For the sake of transparency, I’ll admit that I consider one of my weaknesses as a film analyst to be spotting plot holes. Most of the time, they’re not evident enough or frequent enough to hurt a film; they only start to become a noticeable issue when they begin to stack on top of one another. Den of Thieves: Pantera is unfortunately the perfect example of this. It’s countless plot holes and lack of important clarifications/explanations made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. 

Overall, this is a huge step down from its predecessor and proves that January is still the month when Hollywood decides to dump its forgettable crap. Not a single element improves on the first film which results in an experience that I was pretty much numb to. Unless you wanna see Gerard Butler ham it up in the most perfect sense of the phrase, this sequel has little to offer and is the definition of “forgettable after 24 hours.” C-