Jason Statham has made a name for himself as an action star in films like The Transporter, Crank and, of course, the Fast and Furious franchise. But what makes him stand out is the feeling that he's well aware of some of the hokier elements of the genre even as he executes stunts with stylish aplomb. That said, Statham also knows when he should take a scene seriously, and the actor is nothing if not serious in Wrath of Man, his latest collaboration with director Guy Ritchie, who helped him get his start in films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. However, while re-teaming with Ritchie seems like a no-brainer, this film feels like a step back for Statham as both an action star and an actor.
In Wrath of Man, Statham plays a mysterious man who goes by H. It's a code name he's given when he starts work at a cash truck company, where he's trained by Bullet (Mindhunter's Holt McCallany) to protect the hundreds of millions of dollars he'll be responsible for moving around Los Angeles each day. Yet, while he barely passes the required firearms test, the first time his cash truck is held up, H takes every one of the would-be robbers down with pinpoint accuracy. Clearly, H is more than what he seems, and although he's celebrated for his actions by his co-workers, he has no real interest in his job. In reality, he's out to find the people who murdered his teenage son during another cash truck heist, and he'll stop at nothing to get revenge.
Wrath of Man, which Ritchie wrote with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies based on the 2004 French film Cash Truck, is divided into chapters, each focusing on a specific part of the story. The chapters jump forward and backward in time and cover everything from a few days to a few months. This enables the movie to gradually layer in more pieces of the puzzle of H's background and the incident that led him to take on his mission of vengeance. In fact, the movie is just as fixated on the incident that took H's son from him as H is, and it repeatedly shows what happened from different perspectives. The trouble is this repetition has diminishing returns, and by the time the audience sees the murder from the perspective of the people responsible for it, the sequence takes up an unnecessary 20 minutes.
If that were the only issue with the film, it wouldn't be so bad. However, Wrath of Man has little else to recommend it. The dialogue is impressively awful, and, understandably, none of the actors seem to be able to deliver it convincingly. A lot of the lines hark back to the homosexual panic and misogyny that was popular in Ritchie's late 1990s/early 2000s heyday, which feels dated and offensive now. Similarly, although the cast is racially diverse (the characters speak with a cornucopia of accents, only a few of which remain consistent), outside of one token female cash truck employee, none of the women in the cast show up for more than a minute or two. Unfortunately, the film doesn't make up for any of these shortcomings with the inventiveness or kinetic energy that put Ritchie on the map. Instead, the story is staid and the revelations can be seen a mile away.
That leaves the action sequences to make up for the film's other flaws. However, those who are used to Statham mixing it up in fight sequences will be disappointed to learn that most of the action consists of shootouts. While some of these are well executed, there aren't as many as you'd expect, and only some of them truly stand out. In addition, Statham is largely wooden as the taciturn, monosyllabic H, a character that forces him to suppress the lively flourishes that usually make him so much fun to watch. Furthermore, the action is backed by a score that consists of the same few notes repeated over and over; while the goal may be to evoke solemnity, it's ultimately just annoying.
Interestingly, the person who may fare best in Wrath of Man is pop star Post Malone. Most people probably rolled their eyes at his stunt casting, but the singer is featured in one of the film's most exhilarating action sequences and sticks around just long enough to demonstrate a solid ability to do the acting and stunt work his cameo requires. As a whole, though, Wrath of Man isn't nearly as exciting or surprising as Ritchie and Statham's many other, better films.
Directed and co-written by Guy Ritchie, Wrath of Man stars Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Hartnett, Laz Alonzo, Raúl Castillo, Deobia Oparei, Eddie Marsan and Scott Eastwood. The film opens in theaters May 7.