Synopsis:
A mysterious and wild-eyed new cash truck security guard (Jason Statham) surprises his coworkers during a heist in which he unexpectedly unleashes precision skills. The crew is left wondering who he is and where he came from. Soon, the marksman’s ultimate motive becomes clear as he takes dramatic and irrevocable steps to settle a score.
What We Thought:
Overall Wrath of Man is good especially the first and third acts. It loses steam in the second act, but I’ll get to that in a bit. If you like Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie films you’ll like it overall as well, but there’s definitely a better movie in there to be had.
Statham plays a mysterious man who takes a job as a security guard riding shotgun on cash trucks. You can tell he has a past, but they don’t really get into it right away. His son was killed and you know he’s out for revenge trying to find out if it was an inside job or who was involved. The first act has you leaning one way, thinking the son worked for the company and that Statham is a former cop or soldier.
But then the second act gets into explaining so much it slows the film down. Not only do we find out about Statham’s character and the full situation with the son, but we get an excessive backstory on who was involved and their entire future plot. Half of the second act is Statham scorching the Earth to find out information, but then the second half of act two is all about the group of men involved with the death of the son and their jobs. You almost forget the movie is about Statham’s revenge when so much about this other group comes to light. Cut their backstory and development of their characters and it’s a much better/tighter film.
But then the third act kicks in with what you expect out of a Statham flick. There’s action, a robbery, tons of guns and violence and the third act almost makes up for the dragging of the second act. At this point in time Statham can do these roles in his sleep, but I’m a huge fan and love his previous films with director Guy Ritchie so I was eager to watch this one. The third act definitely saves the film and has the type of violent action I like from films like Den of Thieves and The Town.
Wrath of Man isn’t the home run I was hoping it would be. It’s good, but I wanted a bit more from it. Well maybe a bit less in that second act. Statham is always entertaining to me, Scott Eastwood is almost the spitting image of his dad and Ritchie still does gangster action well. Even with all the backstory in the second act, you really don’t get a clear cut explanation of Statham especially his relationship with Andy Garcia. You can assume most of it though. It’s a bit of a mess and it’s not Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, but there isn’t a whole lot of new movies to watch right now anyways.
DIRECTOR: Guy Ritchie
SCREENPLAY BY: Guy Ritchie and Ivan Atkinson & Marn Davies
BASED UPON THE FILM: “Le Convoyeur” Written by Nicolas Boukhrief and Éric Besnard and Directed by Nicolas Boukhrief
PRODUCERS: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Bill Block
CAST: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Hartnett, Laz Alonzo, Raúl Castillo, Deobia Oparei with Eddie Marsan and Scott Eastwood
RATING: R: Strong Violence Throughout, Pervasive Language, and Some Sexual References
Instagram: @WrathFilm
Twitter: @WrathFilm
Facebook: @WrathFilm
The Nerds Templar 