‘Den of Thieves 2’ Review: Heads to France and Misses Danger

Director Christian Gudegast’s 2018 “Heat” homage, “Den of Thieves,” has change into one thing of a cult traditional within the years since its launch, largely due to co-star Gerard Butler’s boisterous, haggard efficiency as of “Big Nick”. O’Brien, a unclean detective (and gang member) from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, is scorching on the heels of an skilled thief with good connections, Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber).

If “Den of Thieves” was a kind of “Dumb Heat,” the sequel, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” pays homage to a different Robert De Niro thriller, “Ronin,” with automobile chases set on hairpin bends. within the hills of Nice, France, and a brand new group of expert thieves led by a charismatic lady, Jovanna (Evin Ahmad). Meanwhile, Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), the promising younger pilot from the primary movie who acquired the higher of each Big Nick and Merrimen, has now joined the Serbian mafia (aka Pantera) in some thefts of excessive price diamonds. Cat thieves on the French Riviera? It’s like “To Catch a Den of Thieves”, Not?

In his obscure remakes of De Niro’s filmography, Gudegast now is aware of that the attraction is Big Nick, so he should take our man – the ink nonetheless moist on his divorce papers – to France, on the heels of younger Donnie. And so “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” turns into a journey diary for our antihero, an “A Propos de Nick”, if you’ll. While within the first movie he munched and slurped donuts, fried rooster and glasses of wine, he now drinks espresso and enjoys “croy-sants” and ice cream in Europe.

Nick reveals up in France beneath the guise of figuring out his suspect, having tracked down Donnie’s checking account, however too simply falls in with Donnie and the Pantera group, becoming a member of them to rob the World Diamond Center vault, the place an enormous the pink diamond stolen from a aircraft in Antwerp, Belgium, is there.

Nick is laid low with his thieving enemies, he’s fascinated by them and now he has nothing to lose. He’s bored with looking, he claims. So as a substitute of going toe-to-toe with a Torrance Benihana with Merrimen, the snarling ex-con/ex-high college soccer star from Long Beach, she lets free at a French membership with the affable Donnie (posing as Jean-Jacques, a rich businessman of diamonds) and driving scooters drunk to get shawarma. It’s enjoyable, nevertheless it’s not fairly the identical sort of thrilling pressure that drove the primary movie.

“Panther” is somewhat too foolish, leaning into the foolish facet of Nick’s character. The first movie performed straight, which is why it labored so properly, and nobody in “Panther” matches Schreiber’s depth and simmering anger, so it is extra of a buddy comedy between Donnie and Nick. The members of the Serbian gangs are usually not properly established, and even the Sicilian mafiosi, who enter the ring, are usually not even structured as actual antagonists. In reality, all of them begin to mix into one mass of indistinguishable European mobsters, and there is no actual sense of hazard.

Gudegast tackled the script himself (he co-wrote the primary movie with “Prison Break” showrunner Paul T. Scheuring), and whereas he has a knack for creative strokes, the sequel does not boast the lore of its predecessor and depends closely on coincidence and deus ex machina to maneuver issues alongside. At a strong 2 hours and 24 minutes, the movie is flaccid, unenhanced and missing an unpredictable aspect beneath pressure.

While it is enjoyable to reconnect with Big Nick and watch him attempt new meals, there’s simply one thing lacking from this mechanical rip-off of “Ronin”: hazard. It appears that Gudegast and his forged of characters have descended on Europe with only some concepts in place, and the tapestry of this world is not as tightly woven as the unique. Ah properly, we’ll all the time have Torrance.