One hesitates to ever use the phrase “lazy” in describing the epic enterprise that is the making of any major motion picture. But the temptation is there in describing writer-director Christian Gudegast’s reunion with Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. for “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.”
They had all those years between films — “Den of Thieves” came out seven Januarys ago — and this lumbering, indulgent and nonsensical sequel is what they came up with?
There’s a hint of “French Connection 2” in the thought processes here. Let’s take our cop from the first film, send him to the South of France and have him “turn” and join the high-stakes heist artist he was chasing in the original.
But that resemblence is a fraud. If you’re going to get Butler back on board, you’d better promise him a working vacation in Nice and the Riviera, not the grit of Marseilles. You want Jackson, Jr. around, you’d better promise the same, plus a better wardrobe and a flashier character who tries his hand at speaking French.
Every situation is trite, under-motivated and perfunctory. Many a scene is drawn out for “acting” moments where our two antagonists swap pointless back-story anecdotes about their upbringing.
It opens with a tepid jet transport (in the hangar) heist and finishes with a derivative diamond district robbery. These underwhelming action beats come almost two hours apart in the movie’s dawdling narrative. Slapping a mountainside Nice to Northern Italy car chase onto the ending doesn’t do much for that “lifeless” feeling
Gudegast makes the distinction between his two characters clear in the most cartoonish ways. One’s a slovenly, just-divorced cop who drinks too much. The other’s a driven, team-assembling super-thief who dresses better and “can’t stop” his craving for bigger and bigger robberies.
Oh, and one smokes and the other vapes. I’ll leave that mystery for you to solve if you watch this two and a half hour bore.
Butler’s burnout-case Nick is freshly divorced when he hears of this Antwerp airport robbery that sounds…almost nothing like the one in “Den of Thieves.” Living in his truck (“I LOVE my car!”), he bullies his superiors into sending him abroad, faking Federal Marshal credentials so he can talk the French into letting him help catch his elusive mastermind, Donnie (Jackson).
There’s attempted humor in the cop to cop banter with Nick’s French counterpart (Yasen Zates Atour) about the pronunciation of “croissant,” “you Americans” and the like. It doesn’t take.
The only joke that works is Nick’s drunken, enthusiastic quotation of the title of the most famous song by Jackson’s rapper/actor Dad (Ice Cube), earning a double-take from criminal mastermind Donnie.
It takes literally nothing (that we see) for Nick to track Donnie down on the Riviera. He’s just abruptly in the apartment Donnie has rented to scope out the scene of his next caper, a “diamond district” bank heist.
Evin Ahmed plays the “overwatch” “honey trap” member of Donnie’s “Panther” team of colorless Serbians.
The Sicilian mafia has a problem with what they’re doing, leading to threats, more complications and some members of their crew backing out.
It’s going to take a lot of product-placement Audis to chase down that electric Porsche they use for their attempted getaway.
Our writer-director indulges his star by giving him quirks, speeches and put-downs, but little that amounts to “character” in any realistic sense. Nick’s “reason” for threatening his way into this cop-to-criminal career change?
“You got over on me, fraulien. No one gets over on me.”
The heists are derivative, un-rehearsed and unexciting, with curious gadgetry and half-assed problem solving.
But as the old song goes, “It’s nicer, much nicer, in Nice.” So at least one and all got a nice Nice visit to the South of France for their trouble.
Rating: R, violence, profanity, drug abuse, smoking
Cast: Gerard Butler, O’Shea Jackson Jr, Evin Ahmad, Salvatore Esposito, Dino Kelly and
Fortunato Cerlino
Credits: Scripted and directed by Christian Gudegast. A Lionsgate release.
Running time: 2:24
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