In 2018, the heist thriller The Thieves entered the canon of all-time January movies, quickly earning a passionate fan base, box office success, and the greenlight for a sequel. Seven years later, that sequel has finally arrived in style, with tighter writing, exciting heist sequences and lovably dirty characters.
The Thieves 2: Pantera sees writer-director Christian Gudegast return for his second feature film, alongside stars O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Gerard Butler as master criminal Donnie Wilson and dirty cop Nick O’Brien. Although both films are heist thrillers, they feel different from each other: the first film captures the seedy atmosphere of the dirty Los Angeles cops and criminals going head-to-head, while Pantera moves the action to Europe and often feels more like a globetrotting spy thriller.
While The Thieves‘ robbery was completely original, Pantera‘s great task is based on the infamous Antwerp robbery from 2003the largest known diamond heist in history. In the film, Gudegast and his team craft the heist methodically, paying close attention to the thieving process and gradually using both the sound design and cross-cutting to other related sequences to build the tension to an almost unbearable point.
Of the film’s many standout scenes, the most impressive is a daring car chase and gunfight that takes place on a narrow, winding mountain road. The series is absolutely exciting, and not just because Gudegast and his team are breaking new ground using modified electric-powered vehicles. The sense of danger is palpable, and the custom modifications they were able to make to the cars allowed the cameras to instantly capture every part of the action.
Polygon spoke to Gudegast about it via Zoom Pantera‘s thrilling electric car chase and how it all came together.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Polygon: I heard you got lucky on the Porsche side in terms of your exciting pursuit. Where did that idea come from? How did it all come together for you?
Christian Gudegast: I’m a car nut and I race in rallies all the time. I’m just a car guy. The reason we go for the Porsche TaycanWhy I wrote it this way is that from my research I wanted an electric car. Many thieves want to be as inconspicuous as possible when they are exiled for a long time – in other words, when they travel a long distance with loot. With an electric car you keep the noise low; it’s a much more unobtrusive ride. That’s one factor.
Another factor was the performance of the roads they traveled on. So I explored all the avenues beforehand, and when I was designing the heist, I was with the thieves, and we literally designed what they would have done physically. We went to the geographical location where they were actually going – they want to avoid roads with CCTV or what’s called AMPR, automated license plate readers. We found these roads and drove on them. They were very winding mountain roads in the Alpes-Maritimes, north of Nice. And that led to the border of Italy. We drove them, we shot them and we recreated that.
So it was all kind of reverse-engineered. I looked at those roads, looked at the cars: “This is the kind of car we want.” And then we approached Porsche and they were in right away. During the first two minutes of the first conversation with all the Porsche brass, they jumped ahead. They don’t advertise, they don’t really do advertising, but for whatever reason they saw this as a phenomenal opportunity, and they were incredible partners.
They were there six months in advance. They redesigned and equipped all the cars for the shoot, which had never been done with an electric car before. We built pods so the driver could sit on the roof of the car, and they had to reconfigure all the controls, and all the wiring went up to the roof. The driver sits on the roof, so we can have the cameraman and all the actors in the car, and they can worry about pretending to be driving and performing and filming and doing dialogue.
Meanwhile, the driver was sitting on the roof of the car, and of course these were very, very dangerous roads, literally with a thousand foot drop, no joke. So the stunts were very hairy, very dangerous and very precarious. Of course we rehearsed a lot for it. But Porsche, we couldn’t have done it without them. I mean, they were incredible. And they did everything themselves. They brought all the lead engineers from North America and Germany, and they really made that series possible.
How have electric cars changed the way you film a car chase? I have to imagine the audio was a big factor.
We shot it in a way where we wanted to feel the speed – lots of wide and low, because the wider the lens you feel more speed and more movement. We did things differently in the way we photographed in and around the car. We didn’t want to have installations on the outside of the car, as you often do, where you shoot coverage from both sides – from installations outside the door of the car, looking through the windshields. We wanted to have the camera in the car, be able to hand-hold it and be right in the middle of the action, right in the actor’s face. And the pod rig allowed us to do that.
But actually it was the sound you mentioned. It was really in the sound design. We had Porsche record all their own stuff for us, from their electric Taycan engine, and we improved it a little bit here and there. We want to make some sort of buzz. It has a very specific electric kind of hum, and we really wanted to bring that to the forefront. We just love the way it turned out. Steve (Barden), my sound designer, did a fantastic job. It gave it a very unique and specific sound that is unique to the car.
When you made the decision, did it ever seem like a risk to you to undertake a chase in an electric car?
What were you worried about?
In the tunnel part of the chase, the purpose of the tunnel is because the sound is so incredible, because of the reverberation. But part of it is the engine. And so we were concerned that we wouldn’t have any real engine reverb. But when we actually did it, we realized there was a little bit of reverb coming out of the engine, believe it or not. It just extended the buzzing sound. So we were able to improve that a little bit sound design-wise when we were in that tunnel. And then of course the gunfire. But the Audis ran on gas, so then we had the advantage of the Audi engines and that reverb in that tunnel, which was cool.
Historically, electric cars have mostly been used as a joke in car chases, regardless of whether it was a prank Mission: Impossible – dead reckoning or in comedies. Have you ever worried about public perception of electric cars?
No, it wasn’t even a factor. We just looked at how we were going to do it, working with Porsche and doing our own thing.
The Thieves 2: Pantera now playing in theaters. The Thieves is streaming on Max and can be rented on Amazon Video, Fandango at homeand other digital platforms.