This kind of blatant signalling - seems bad guys are rich and decadent, who knew - is something this film could have done with a lot more of. It's not like Statham is any stranger to going over the top: his best films and most memorable roles have usually backed right up to being silly, if not gleefully danced on top of it.
Sadly this particular film seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from Statham's recent surprise hit The Beekeeper, an often deeply strange film that audiences gleefully took to because for once the righteous vengeance these action films deal in was focused on a real world villain (online scammers preying on the vulnerable). Turned out people really enjoyed seeing specific dirtbags being punished rather than the usual vague arms dealers and human traffickers and Russian mobsters.
Surprise! Here Cade is tracking down human traffickers, though at least they're home grown and not the evil foreigners from Taken. Though they are weirdly incompetent: their scheme seems to involve kidnapping young women to order and then just keeping them in a basement for a week or so to give Cade time to get on their trail.
A slightly more thought-out movie would have had someone - possibly Cade's police friend, who gets one scene to contribute almost nothing to the plot - say something like "these guys fly a plane full of girls to Dubai once a week, you've got five days" and hey presto, ticking clock.
Instead, this film (based on a novel by former Punisher comic book writer Chuck Dixon, with a script co-written by Sylvester Stallone) uses the traditional and somewhat plodding structure where Cade, once set on the trail of his bosses' missing daughter, murders his way up the food chain until he runs out of people to kill. Only here, because the kidnappers are actually minor thugs, Cade ends up wiping out half the Russian mob because the movie has almost two hours to fill.
The problems with this structure - which is basically a detective story, only the detective can't go back to re-question anyone because he's killed them and there's no mystery to solve - is that you either get a string of forgettable goons or you get a decent bad guy but he only gets two scenes before he's killed and oh look, there's Jason Flemyng as a Russian mobster turning up far too early in the story to stick around for long.
Despite the obvious flaws, director David Ayers knows what he's doing and everything here is solidly competent in a way that, say, some of the more recent Liam Neeson films can't quite manage. The action is decent, the story doesn't dawdle, and there's just enough colour in Cade's numerous antagonists to make them noticeable (highlights include a Russian goon seemingly toting around an anti-aircraft gun and a couple of corrupt cops who are constantly apologising for handing people over to murderous thugs).
The result feels at times like an attempt to tap into the Jack Reacher audience, which might make sense if you've never actually watched Statham act. Statham's big strength as an actor is his sense of humor; the more a film tries to make him into a bland generic thug pummeling bad guys, the less impressive the result. In his best films he brings a touch of levity to taking out the trash, whether it's through implausible action, some decent quips, or just being in a film that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Which brings us back to the fashion. The Beekeeper hit big by having real-world bad guys; this turns the dial the other way and works hard to make Cade, a down-home construction worker and vet trying to hold his family together, a blue collar hero for today. And yet, the one scene where Statham really stands out is the one where he has to go to a business meeting in a suit. Turns out looking good works for him.
- Anthony Morris
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