The dogged cop and wily thief butt heads again in Christian Gudegast's follow-up to his 2018 heist thriller. Imagine the iconic diner sit-down scene between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Michael Mann’s Heat stretched out to feature length and you’ll get some idea of Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.

Pantera debuts in the US theaters today, January 10. Review scores for the sequel have now started to come in and have surpassed those of the original, with the movie getting strong ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

Christian Gudegast's sequel ups the stupidity of the cat-and-mouse thriller that preceded it en route to becoming far more entertaining than it had any right to be.