Wrath of Man

This is neither a typical Guy Ritchie gangster-comedy nor your usual Jason Statham action flick – instead, Wrath of Man is a tense and gritty crime thriller with an interesting premise, a great cast, and well-staged action sequences.

Premise: After two security guards are murdered during an armoured truck heist, Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) takes a job with the security company and is taken under the wing of veteran security guard Haiden "Bullet" Blaire (Holt McCallany). But it soon becomes apparent that the new recruit may not be as wet-behind-the-ears as first thought.

Review:

I really enjoyed Guy Ritchie’s return to his gangster-comedy roots with 2020’s The Gentlemen, but Wrath of Man is a very different film, both stylistically and tonally.  Equally, there’s a time and a place for Jason Statham’s OTT action flicks (and I really enjoyed his recent turn in Hobbs & Shaw), but this is a much more straight-faced performance from him in this film.  It’s worth knowing from the start that Wrath of Man, loosely based on a 2004 French thriller, is perhaps not what you would normally expect from the Ritchie/Statham collaboration.

Not that this is a bad thing, by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the opposite in fact – Wrath of Man feels fresh and unexpected, being so different from the types of films that Ritchie and Statham have previously worked on. Yes, there are little moments of black humour, but for the most part, Wrath of Man is a no-nonsense thriller played with deadly seriousness. While the violence never feels gratuitous (and various characters’ reactions to the violence inflicted make it clear that the filmmakers are not necessarily condoning the violence in the film), it’s also not cartoonish or played for laughs. The action scenes are visceral and at times brutal, and arguably the best choreographed of Guy Ritchie’s career so far.

“…slowly but satisfyingly unveils the various layers of revelations…”

I don’t want to say too much about the plot, as the film slowly but satisfyingly unveils the various layers of revelations as the audience progress through the film’s four parts. Breaking the film down into four distinct parts, and playing with time and chronology between those parts, does feel like a nod to Quentin Tarantino, although Wrath of Man doesn’t have the comedic twinkle in the eye that most of Tarantino’s work does. What I can say about the plot is that although I saw one twist coming a mile away (to the extent that I thought the twist might be that it was a double bluff), most of the other twists did come as a surprise to me, even when I had a vague idea about what might be happening.

Jason Statham delivers a much more subdued performance in Wrath of Man than you might be used to, but there’s always the feeling that there’s plenty bubbling under the surface of his character. He might not get to exercise his comedic skills like he does playing Deckard Shaw, or show off his combat prowess like he does playing Frank Martin, but in this film he is able to strike the right balance between keeping his character a mystery to the audience, but without leaving them feeling unconnected to his story.

“…an enjoyable & satisfying journey to the final (bullet-riddled) denouement…”

Guy Ritchie has assembled a great cast around Jason Statham, including veteran character actors like Holt McCallany, Eddie Marsan and Jeffrey Donovan, as well as some unexpected familiar faces like Josh Hartnett, Andy García, Rob Delaney and Scott Eastwood, and less well-known actors like Laz Alonso (who’s great in The Boys), DeObia Oparei (who made an impression in Marvel’s Loki) and Irish Film & Television Academy award-winning Niamh Algar. All of them bring a little something interesting to their characters, and help to flesh out an engaging world around Statham’s central performance.

Cynics out there could argue that the plot is a familiar one, but while that’s true on a superficial level, it’s the way in which this film’s concept is executed that makes it interesting. Although one key twist is easy to see coming, that still doesn’t detract from the enjoyable and satisfying journey to get to the final (bullet-riddled) denouement.