Director Jean-François Richet understands the recipe for an exciting action picture. Jason Statham understands his place in modern action cinema. With the new Statham-offing-baddies-on-a-boat thriller, Mutiny, the filmmaker and his star deliver a pretty fun 95 minutes for fans of tough guy bloodletting. This is certainly no Walter Hill or John McTiernan movie, but there are enough well-designed action set pieces to make you forget the screenplay is feather light.
Written by Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis, Mutiny finds Statham stowing away on a cargo ship, trying to stay alive as everyone seems to want him dead. The long, tight, walkways of the ship allow cinematographer Brendan Galvin and the stunt coordinators to work in unison; creating claustrophobically intense fight moments that exist as the film’s only real strength.
Statham plays Cole Reed, former London police officer who is now head of security for his rich boss and friend (Ramon Tikaram). After he is framed for his boss’s murder, Reed finds himself hiding on a cargo ship, hiding from authorities and seeking revenge for his fallen friend. While on board, he (damn near) immediately finds a bunch of sickly refugees in one of the cargo holds. It is clear they are to be sold into slavery so (of course) Cole Reed adds their rescue to his list of tasks.
Where Mutiny catches fire (okay, maybe a medium size flame) is following Statham through the bowels of the ship. As Reed snakes through the darkness of the ship’s corridors, John McLaine style, director Richet sustains a decent amount of suspense. Once the ship’s captain (Roland Møller) is revealed to be a villain (This is no spoiler. You see it coming the second he appears.) the stakes get higher, leading to the inevitable fight with Reed. When it comes, their moment in the sun is a terrific scene of old-fashioned hand to hand brutality that revels in its close-contact fight choreography.
Annabelle Wallis is the ship’s third mate, Angie, a mother just trying to get home to her daughter who also stumbles upon the refugees and becomes Reed’s makeshift partner. Wallis is a good actress, but the script has no idea what to do with her. At first, Angie is determined to save the refugees, until she learns the whole ship is a criminal operation. After meeting Reed, the character is demoted to a caricature. Statham and Wallis have a good rapport, but the empty script lets them down.
Jean-François Richet does a good job keeping the film at a tight pace and manages to craft some suspenseful moments amongst the action. Mutiny’s biggest issues begin and end with the screenplay. There isn’t a lot of logic to be found here. Characters (including our hero) make some obvious and avoidable mistakes. Along with the tired stereotype of bad guys with accents, most of the dialogue is forgettable. Statham gets in a few good lines and his final delivery might induce a few cheers from avid fans, but nearly every sentence spoken seems perfunctory.
The writers let down the great British actor, Adrian Lester, who plays a navy captain who responds to a distress signal Angie manages to send. The film sets Lester and his men up to be part of a final battle between heroes and villains, but the script (once again) fails to follow through.
If Jason Statham is to wear the “His generation’s Charles Bronson” moniker, then his films are more suited to the Bronson movies of the 1980s; mostly solid efforts with a couple of gems, but the film legend’s 80s output became repetitious as the scripts grew more pedestrian. Statham has made some great films. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrells, Snatch, and Wrath of Man are jewels in his crown, while the sadly under-acknowledged British football remake of Robert Aldrich’s 1974 classic, The Longest Yard, is brutal fun. The problem with his filmography is that he never stops and seems to say yes to every action thriller offered to him.
With 2002’s surprise box office hit, The Transporter, Hollywood shoved Statham to the front of the action movie line. In film after film, the actor gets to use his impressive martial arts fight skills and badass persona to the delight of his ever-loyal fanbase. That he never strays far from what works keeps Jason Statham at the top of the movie tough guy food chain.
Unfortunately, his admirable work ethic has caused an overabundance of duds in his filmography. For every good Statham movie (Homefront, A Working Man, and The Beekeeper), there are a slew of goofily derivative works that give subpar a bad name. Can anyone tell the difference between Redemption, Wild Card, Safe, and Shelter? Does he really need to be inserted into the ridiculous Fast and the Furious series? Did he think the low-rent remake of Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 would work? Do The Meg and The Meg 2 actually exist or was it a bad dream?
Jason Statham is a damn good action star and a solid actor with one hell of a screen presence. His persona is a successful Frankenstein’s monster made with bits of Steve McQueen, Charlie Bronson, and Stanley Baker (look him up, kids!). With the right script and director, the man can do it better than most of his modern contemporaries.
You want intense, bloody, action held within crisply designed fights? Come on down! You want to grab a bucket of popcorn and a big soda and forget your troubles for 95 minutes? This is the film for you!
Looking for a well-thought out screenplay that gives action audiences something new and inventive while challenging its lead actor? Hit the bricks.
Mutiny isn’t a great Jason Statham movie, but it is far from a bad one. The film entertains.
Sometimes, that’s all we ask.
Mutiny
Screenplay by Lindsay Michel & J.P. Davis
Directed by Jean-François Richet
Starring Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, Ramon Tikaram, Jason Wong, Adrian Lester, Chaneil Kular
R, 95 Minutes, Lionsgate
