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Den of Thieves 2: Pantera

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den of thieves 2

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Bob Hoose
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Movie Review

It’s been way too many years, and way too many denied requests for access and funds, but Nicholas “Big Nick” O’Brien is still obsessed with a certain crime from his past. But this blustering blister of a hard-drinking cop still can’t quite figure out how it was done.

The thieves stole tens of millions of dollars from the Federal banking system, yet the Feds swear nothing is missing. They also keep telling him to shut up and go away. But even though Nick’s obsession got him fired from L.A.’s major crimes division, he still isn’t ready to admit defeat.

In fact, Nick’s investigations have led him, of all places, to Nice, France. Some robberies there have a familiar ring. And even though Nick has no authority in France (or anywhere else, for that matter), that won’t stop him.

Nick has connections, he has fake credentials, he has … lies. He’s never minded getting a little dirty.

After Nick deceives his way into a French police headquarters and sees some footage filmed by security cameras in the Nice diamond district, he realizes he’s right. There is a connection to the crimes he’s investigating. One of those connections is a guy named Donnie Wilson.

There he is, big as life, strutting through the diamond district masquerading as a French importer/smuggler.

But when Big Nick confronts Donnie (now, Jean-Jacques) some gear in his internal mechanism slips. If Donnie’s crew is on the verge of racking in hundreds of millions in a diamond heist, why should Nick stop them?

Why not join them?

I mean, Nick has been operating on the thinnest of cliff edges of the law for years now. He’s out of a job. His credibility back home is permanently tarnished. His marriage has crumbled. Hey, he’s really not even all that great of a guy.

So why not … just take the next step? His years in the major crimes unit have trained him to understand all the angles, all the ins and outs of enforcement. So why not just join the other side and get his payday. After all, Donnie owes him.

Hey, being the “good guy” was never all it was cracked up to be anyway. Man, he needs a drink.


Positive Elements

Nick is certainly not a person with a heart of gold. And Den of Thieves 2 is generally about deception and theft. But we ultimately see Nick make choices that benefit others when the rubber hits the road.

Spiritual Elements

Nick follows someone into a French church service in a cathedral. He sits and listens to the beautiful hymns being sung by a choir.

In another setting, we see a man kneeling on a prayer rug.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Nick gets into a car with busty woman wearing a very revealing top. He suggests that she’s masquerading as a prostitute. Later he drunkenly dances with a woman he meets who’s wearing a dress that’s cut all the way down to her waist, revealing much of her torso while keeping vital parts covered. We see a club scene featuring women dressed in very formfitting outfits.

When someone asks how Donnie and Nick know each other, Nick jokes that they met on a “gay cruise.” Someone makes a crude sexual allusion about how he’ll handle some tech work.

Violent Content

Den of Thieves 2 isn’t as warlike and bloody as the previous film, but it still has its quotient of bloodletting and violence. The central crimes involve two different groups of thieves, as well as the mafia and the police authorities, so there is an ongoing sense of threatening danger in the mix.

One scene involves a car chase and high-caliber weapons that riddle cars and smash windows with bullets. Several cars crash, one flipping up and hurtling off a twisting mountain roadway. Men are shot and killed, some brutally so; we see them lying in pools of blood.

Two guys get thrown off a boat some mile or so away from shore. Nick threatens to kill a woman and leave her body in a shipping crate. Donnie talks about witnessing his father’s murder when he was only 6 years old. (That horrible violence turned him to a life of crime.) Nick talks about his father being shot by crooks. (Which led him into law enforcement with a desire to hunt crooks.)

People dangle from great heights during a heist. A guard is shot, but he survives thanks to a bulletproof vest. Men get into a fearsome, face-pounding fistfight. After daring events, men are left battered and bleeding. In other scenes men and women are manhandled, thrown forcefully to the ground and held at gunpoint.

Crude or Profane Language

Crude profanities are rife here with nearly 90 uses of the f-word, two dozen s-words and a handful of uses each of “a–,” “a–hole” and “b–ch.” Crude references are made to both the male and female anatomy.

God’s name is misused a few times, and someone uses an offensive hand gesture.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Nick and others smoke cigarettes regularly in Den of Thieves 2.

Nick also drinks throughout the movie, imbibing beer, whiskey and other adult beverages. We watch him and others getting quite drunk in a bar/club scene with mixed drinks and repeated shots of booze.

That crew passes around a joint laced with the drug Ecstasy, too. In this instance, both Nick and Donnie get very buzzed. We see them staggering about, falling off moving motor scooters, etc.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Nick talks with another divorced cop about the negative toll that police work can have on a marriage, admitting that he only gets to see his kids now on Christmas and birthdays.

Of course, this whole story is focused on lies, deception and theft.

Conclusion

Director Christian Gudegast is obviously shooting to deliver another gritty heist film with his sequel to 2018’s Den of Thieves. Only he’s shifted the focus from modern Wild West, shoot-‘em-down bank robbery in L.A. to high-tech buddy/crook thievery in the diamond district of Nice. And he’s cranked up the cigarette-fueled machismo to at least a scratch-and-spit 9 on the dial.

In that setting, Gerard Butler delivers his glowering best with all the thick-necked, thick-bearded, thick-brogued and thickly inebriated gusto he can muster.

The result is a film that some will appreciate.

If, however, you’re not a fan of deceptive larceny; heavy drinking and drug use; bloody shootouts; and enough chucked f-bombs to make an Italian mob boss blush, well, this probably isn’t the film for you.

In short: Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is not family fare.


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Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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