Jason Statham, Guy Ritchie reunite and have a blast
Jason Statham says very, very little in his new film. The English actor must have only need to memorize about three pages of dialogue. But, as always, he’s very expressive with his hands. And the guns in them.
“You ain’t much for talking, are you, Mary Poppins?” he is asked in a locker room taunt. What’s your guess that whoever said that is going to survive this movie?
Steely Statham reunites with directorwriter Guy Ritchie for a stylish revengeheist mashup “Wrath of Man,” building on a partnership that has previously produced “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch” and “Revolver.”
Both men are in their ideal element in “Wrath of Man” — Statham on a cool and consistent murder spree of bad guys and Ritchie capturing it all with his kinetic filmmaking style and restless camera.
Loosely based on the 2004 French film “Cash Truck,” the story starts with the messy, bloody assault on a Los Angeles armored truck hauling money and thrillingly returns again and again to this key moment.
Statham is hired as a guard in the aftermath of the attack and soon shines at Fortico Security, mainly because he is so deadly that he kills would-be thieves — including a moonlighting Post Malone — without ever crouching or dodging. He just walks straight toward them, pumping bullets and never misses. Someone calls him “unambiguously precise.”
The screenplay — co-written by Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies — leans on a classic Ritchie trick of scrambling time by jumping ahead and then back. That adds a little faux-European chic to what is pretty much a predictable Yankee formula.
“Wrath of Man,” an MGM release, is rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexual references. Running time: 119 minutes.