Netflix’s $320 million The Electric State is currently plummeting down its Top 10 movie list, now at #5 and dropping, passed up by a number of licensed movies from Despicable Me 4 to Kraven The Hunter to now, a new action movie that so far, is the best of the year.
That would be Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, which may sound like a cheesy straight to DVD offering (well, straight to streaming now), it’s a surprisingly good sequel to a surprisingly good original which was clearly successful enough to warrant this second movie. Though yes, kind of cheesy.
The concept of the original Den of Thieves was Gerard Butler as a rule-breaking LA Sheriff attempting to stop a heist crew, led by Pablo Schreiber’s Ray Merrimen, who would go on to star in the awful Halo show, but despite that, he’s excellent here.
Since his breakout role in 300, Gerard Butler has been carving out these somewhat schlocky but solid action movies, including the “Has Fallen” series, but now, simultaneously, Den of Thieves.
The first film was good, better than its 43% critic score indicated back in 2018, but now both its critic and audience score have improved since the original, a fresh 63% and a 79% respectively. Seven years later, they’ve refined the concept. The movie brings back Butler, of course, but also the first film’s O’Shea Jackson Jr. In what may be something of a cost-saving measure, they are the two biggest names in the cast, and the series didn’t feel the need to add a bunch of A-listers to attract more attention. The highest profile new addition would be Salvatore Esposito, known best for nearly a decade of the series Gomorrah. Here’s the official synopsis of Den of Thieves 2:
“Gerard Butler (Plane, Has Fallen series) and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Out of Compton, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) return in the sequel to 2018’s action-heist hit Den of Thieves. In DEN OF THIEVES: PANTERA, Big Nick (Butler) is back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (Jackson), who is embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia, as they plot a massive heist of the world’s largest diamond exchange.”
One problem Netflix has is that no, you cannot watch the original Den of Thieves on the service right now, and would have to head over to Peacock or Amazon for that. Licensing! So much fun.
Given that we’re only a quarter of the way through the year, no, I would not expect Den of Thieves 2 to stay the best action movie of the year, even if yes, I would say it beats out Captain America: Brave New World so far. My guess is it won’t be better than Thunderbolts, for one. But it’s a great, Heat-channeling movie that a lot of people will probably enjoy, as is the first, if you haven’t checked it out yet.
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