Den of Thieves 2: Pantera-A Decently Fun Heist

Den of Thieves 2 loses some of the first movie's enjoyable loudmouth energy, but that slickness that made the first movie a cut above most other Heat copycats remains. The film abandons the Cop and Robber cat-and-mouse chase from the first movie for most of its runtime and instead feels more like your standard heist movie. Thankfully, the film is quite good at being a heist movie, with some slick camerawork and editing that keeps you engaged and an assortment of heist movie moments that leave you awestruck over the characters' ingenious methods.

The film is at its best, though, when focusing more on the characters and less on the heist. The film gives Donnie and Big Nick this nice Buddy dynamic that works quite well, especially since O'Shea Jackson Jr and Gerrard Butler have surprisingly great comedic chemistry, making their interactions incredibly entertaining. The scenes of the heist crew hanging out between each heist setup and the heist itself were also quite fun, as they provided for this incredibly entertaining group dynamic, particularly a scene where the crew are fighting over what music to play in the warehouse.

Like the first movie, the film feels overlong, with many scenes dragging on longer than needed, and the extended runtime allows for B-plots that feel like they don't need to be there. Scenes involving the crime boss antagonist felt especially unnecessary and disrupted the pacing whenever they occurred. The film's ending also drags on incredibly long, with the film struggling to find a good ending point.

Much of what made the first Den of Thieves so entertaining is here, with many of the same enjoyable characters and dynamics, as well as the same slick action and heist movie trickery. But as a whole, the film does end up feeling mostly like your standard, run-of-the-mill heist movie after a while, with some pacing issues from time to time, especially in its final act.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is Now Playing in the US