Birds of the same feather tend to find a way to flock back together…

While Den of Thieves 2: Pantera has “Foreign Markets Cash Grab” written all over it on paper, it’s actually one of those rare movies that manages to surpass the original as it allows for genuine character development to get a glimpse inside the mindset of the characters in this world.

In Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, Big Nick (Gerard Butler) is back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), 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.

It’s one of those rare cinematic moments that you don’t always see coming, but Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is actually one of those rare sequels that surpasses the original in every way as we get to see more into the mindset of the characters and what it takes to live on that thin line between cop and crook, while trading in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles for the south of France.

Returning as the embattled and ethically questionable Big Nick, our action hero of the B-Movie modern age in Gerard Butler is actually beginning to find his inner Al Pacino (Yeah I said it ‘Internet Film Community’….come at me) because the man we met as the brazen modern day cowboy is now weary of the world and lacking direction as he gets back on the trail of the one man who got over him.  It’s not a rangy performance but it just might be one of the better one’s of Butler’s career because we actually got a sense of the layers underneath the callouses of this man’s life and he allows us to get seduced by the idea of being on the other side of what’s right and what’s wrong.

O’Shea Jackson Jr is again underrated here as Donnie, a man who got swept up into the lifestyle trying to stay one step ahead of the fate that he knows he has made for himself.

Jackson and Butler play of each effortlessly and we buy the advance of their relationship which began as foes and is now evolving into something else.

Writer/Director Christian Gudegast has a healthy track record as a writer giving us B+ grade action fare that allows us to get invested in the players involved but here he manages to up it all to a new level, allowing for the South of France to becoming this very engaging backdrop of intrigue that these characters had to navigate.  Rather than the slums or the racially charged overtones that exist in a city like Los Angeles, it was the elegance of France that made this film feels more palpable and more emotionally real.  Whereas the first film was an action heavy character film, this installment truly felt a story and a universe that we want to get lost in as it teases the potential that we just might not be done with this relationship between Big Nick and Donnie.

It’s a heady comparison, but it’s an accurate one as Den of Thieves 2: Pantera shares many of the same overtones that Michael Mann’s Heat does.  We aren’t just invested in the cat and mouse chase or even the heist, but we’re invested in the men and women in the middle of it all.