Criminal Squad: Pantera: A sequel that beats up [critique]

At a time when Hollywood is striving to smooth out its action films, Pantera orchestrates a magnificent, trashy and fairly tight chaos, with Gérard Butler at the top of his form!

When the cops betray their side, the rules change. Criminal Squad: Pantera understood this well by orchestrating a spectacular turnaround and propelling the saga of Nick O'Brien (also nicknamed Fat Nick) to new heights. At a time when Hollywood is striving to smooth out its action productions, Pantera never apologizes for anything and bursts onto the screens to orchestrate a magnificent, very trashy and quite tight chaos! This sequel transposes the action from Los Angeles to Europe with an idea as inflated as a Connor McGregor bicep: transforming Gerard Butler, the gruff former cop with flexible ethics, into a fully committed criminal. The first opus, which unashamedly looked towards Heathad found its audience in streaming and had seduced with its mixture of careful realism and over-calibrated action. Pantera pushes the cursors into the red by offering an explosive cocktail mixing chrome action and piston-style twists Fast and Furious with the heist film in the style ofOcean's Eleven.

When it all begins Nick is mired in his divorce and at odds with his hierarchy. When he understands where Donnie, his nemesis from the first film, is hiding, he decides to go looking for him. Not to arrest him, no, but to suggest an association – of criminals. Nick and Donnie will try to rob a bank reputed to be impregnable in Nice. What they don't know is that a mysterious mafia is also in on the action… Pantera, that's its name.

Gerard Butler, bearded and shiny, is our man. He beats up the Californian overspeed champion, O Shea Jackson (Ice Cube's son). To act as a buffer, in this nitroglycerin duel, Gudegast flanks them with a vicious Italian, a very clever woman and French cops. This little world grinds hard under the combined impetus of the burned cylinders, the infiltrated double-deck intrigue, and Gudegast's editing under pressure.

But beyond all these assets, it is Butler, weighted with his neo-beef gangsta charisma, who finds here his best role since… the first criminal squad. More massive, snarky and vulgar than ever, but also very charismatic, he thickens his Nick, a fallen cop consumed by failure and bitterness, who here finds a form of redemption in his descent into hell. The chemistry with Jackson works wonderfully, their muscular “bromance”, punctuated with dark humor and repeated betrayals, lighting up the film. Finally, behind the camera, Gudegast orchestrates this circus with a pyrotechnic know-how that is never lacking, where even the wide shots seem to have done a little muscle building. In short, this sequel achieves the feat of redefining the franchise while retaining the DNA that made the first part successful.

By Christian Gudegast. With Gerard Butler, O Shea Jackson Jr., Evin Ahmad… Duration: 2h10. Released January 8, 2025