Wrath of Man is the new movie by director Guy Richie. A man whose backlog is, let’s just say, varied in quality. But which side will this movie fall under? Will it be a return to form? Or will it be another King Arthur? Well, let’s find out.
The movie stars long-time collaborator Jason Statham as H. He takes a job as a cash transporter for reasons not known. Here are some of the things I will say the movie does well.
First of all. In the beginning, the instructor tells H that he needs to get a minimum 70% score on his test to pass. Doing a small montage we see him do the trial. He stumbles here and there and ends up with 70% no more, no less. This little thing instantly builds some mystery around the character.
Guy Ritchie also plays a bit with the structure. Keeping H´s motivation a mystery for the first half of the film, was a brilliant move. This works very well since you never really know where the film goes. The movie is basically split into three parts. The first part is the introduction where we see H take the job. We are then introduced to the other cash transporters.
The second part is where we see who he really is. This is also the part where we see his motivation for why he took the job.
In the last part, we see a new team of soldiers, who steal from the cash transporters.
We are introduced to a whole new set of characters in each of the parts and none of them are that well-rounded or memorable. This gives the audience little to nothing to latch onto.
There are some weird mistakes made too. The characters talk about a female named “hot Rebecca”. We see them go in where she works, and then we see them go outside and talk about meeting her. But the audience has no idea who she is since she is cut out of the film. Very sloppy.
The movie itself is kind of strange. Guy Ritchie is, if nothing else, good at writing interesting characters that are funny and charismatic. Jason Statham usually has charisma on screen, but here a positive and a positive equals a minus. Jason only operates on one emotion and that is stoic badass. There is nothing else to him. He has the emotional range of a bucket.
My biggest problem with these kinds of movies (and there are many at this point). Is that it stars a character that is basically invincible and kills everyone without breaking a sweat. He can be in a gunfight with armed soldiers and not even blink. These movies always annoy me. That is why I don’t like Taken, The Equalizer, or any other action movie that falls under this category. It’s just the main character beating faceless stormtrooper like enemies for two hours. If the main character is not at some point just a little bit worried about the situation then WHERE ARE THE STEAKS?! A good example of a movie that does this perfectly is John Wick, where John kills a lot of people, but he also gets his ass whooped a lot. In this movie, H is not even breathing. He is playing the Terminator. But the terminator was cool because it was “ a cybernetic organism” and not just some dude.
Since we are talking about bad acting, Scott Eastwood is awful. He single-handedly drags the whole movie down. He would not be in any movie if it weren’t for the fact that his dad is a Hollywood legend.
Niamh Algar Plays a female cash transporter and her whole stick is that she is just like “the boys” Her character feels like a bad rip-off of Vasquez from Aliens.
I did like Holt McCallany’s performance as Bullet, I thought he was pretty good and my favorite in the movie.
The movie also ends super unsatisfying leaving the viewer with no real sense of finality.
The action scenes are boring since you know H can’t take damage.
So yeah….. The movie is not good, I would not recommend it at all. Even the magical Guy Richie energy and dialog are missing. Best to skip this one.