Sept. 19 was a really important day for me. That’s right, the trailer for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, the sequel to 2018’s wonderfully trashy Den of Thieves, was finally released. Upon pulling up the trailer on the biggest screen I could find—my laptop—I had a series of strong, visceral, bone–deep reactions.
The first, of course, was “Hell yeah, brother.” The Benihana Boys ride again. My second reaction, immediately following this, was “Damn, it’s been a while since I’ve felt about a trailer like this.” Beyond the trailers for the year’s classic Oscars bait, I struggle to remember the last time a trailer for a trashy, B “movie–esque” crime flick got me going like this.
For those who don’t know—and I truly pity you all—Den of Thieves is director Christian Gudegast’s 2018 feature film. It’s a film that dares to ask the question, “What if we combined Heat, Inside Man, and The Town but made it really dumb?” And the answer to that question, again, is “Hell yeah, brother.”
The film stars Gerard Butler, the current king—or co–king, give or take a Jason Statham—of action films you didn’t know have been available on video on demand for six months, as Big Nick O’Brian, a Los Angeles cop whose methods make him seem more like the criminals he’s attempting to capture than the traditional cops in these kinds of movies. Butler has created a niche industry for himself reminiscent of the great ‘90s B–tier action stars just a bit past their prime—your Seagals, your Van Dammes, your Norrises. I’m just going to list a couple of his recent credits, and you tell me if you’ve seen them: 2023’s Kandahar, 2023’s Plane, 2022’s Last Seen Alive, 2021’s Copshop, 2020’s Greenland. No? You’re missing out.
Joining him in Den of Thieves is Pablo Schrieber as Ray Merrimen, an ex–Marine–turned–master–thief. His heist crew includes 50 Cent and O’Shea Jackson Jr., who you might know from playing his father in Straight Outta Compton or that guy from Cocaine Bear. Jackson plays Donnie, another ex–Marine and newbie to the world of crime who, in the climactic and delightfully bozo twist at the end of the film, was actually the mastermind all along.
Den of Thieves is so, so indebted to crime films of yore. Instead of the climactic diner scene in Heat between Pacino and De Niro, two of the finest actors of their generation, Den of Thieves has Butler and Schrieber, two of the actors of their generation, going head to head in a Benihana. This says everything you need to know about what kind of movie this is. And it rules. The film ends, as I said, with the reveal that Donnie was really the mastermind all along, forcing Big Nick to track him down again after killing Merrimen.
That brings us back to modern day and me in my bed, watching the incredible trailer for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, which, fantastically, looks to have retained the bozo spirit of the original. Instead of another cat–and–mouse game, Pantera seems to be about Big Nick breaking bad and joining Donnie in the world of crime. Does that make any sense? Of course not. How did Big Nick, a Los Angeles cop, end up in this vague European country? Why would he abandon his mission to catch Donnie to become a criminal? While I am not confident that this will all be explained in the movie itself, I am confident I won’t care. This is Den of Thieves, after all. Also, I know I’ve said it a lot already, but what the hell is a “pantera?” Is that word supposed to mean something to me? It’s the perfect kind of title for a garbage crime sequel. Sounds cool, makes absolutely zero sense.
Pantera is also notable because it seems like we’ve moved locations from Los Angeles to somewhere in Europe—probably wherever the financing for this glorious picture came from. The scale looks bigger and more grand. This time instead of robbing the Federal Reserve, they’re robbing something called the World Diamond Center. What is that? I have no idea. But, again, they’re robbing the WORLD DIAMOND CENTER. Hell yeah, brother.
There’s one more thing that has me really excited about just how bad this movie knows it’s going to be. Pantera will be released on Jan. 10, 2025. That’s right, smack dab in the middle of “Dumpuary,” the annual season of studios attempting to bury their bad movies in the dregs of late winter when everyone in the film world is focused on the Oscars race. Pantera looks like it was made for “Dumpuary.” No movie has looked more like a Jan. 10, 2025, release. It’s important for a movie to know what kind of movie it is, and it looks like Pantera knows exactly what it is.
This brings me back to my original question: What happened to these kinds of movies? Back in the 2000s, it felt like a cop versus gangster movie like this released every other week. Why aren’t there more Den of Thieves?
The answer is that they’re still out there, you just haven’t heard of any of them because they have all been turned into streaming releases or TV shows.
There are still some out there on the big screen. Think of the Equalizer movies or any of Liam Neeson’s recent output. But open up any of the far too numerous streaming services out there, and you’ll see so many more. There are movies I’ve never heard of with stars I didn’t know existed. A lot of these are international films, and a lot of these were made by first–time filmmakers. In the long run, this is probably a good thing. It’s giving filmmakers the opportunity to make a feature film at a lower budget without the pressure of an entire studio on them. It’s as close as we get to the Roger Corman film school model in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The other answer is that a lot of these movies have become TV. Think of Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness. It’s exactly the type of trashy, lower–budget crime story with movie stars that would have opened on Jan. 10 15 years ago. Now, it’s a streaming show on Paramount+. This is worse for the film landscape. It takes some of our most talented actors and filmmakers working today and shuns them to a streaming service no one knows how to access.
And so, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera has somehow taken on the burden of an entire genre. If it does well, it proves these kinds of movies still work in theaters. I know where I’ll be seated Jan. 10, 2025 to show my support, and I hope do too.
