As the summer movie season begins to amp up this month with a variety of theatrical and streaming releases, Jason Statham is back in action with writer/director Guy Ritchie for Wrath of Man this weekend. The action thriller is a remake of the 2004 French film Cash Truck that also stars Scott Eastwood, Andy Garcia and Holt McCallany. While you decide if you’ll check it out, let’s see how the critics felt about it, shall we?
Wrath of Man follows Jason Statham’s mysterious H, who becomes a security guard for a Los Angeles-based cash truck company. The action heats up, the plot takes twists and turns, and obviously Statham is going to kick some serious butt. We’ll start off with CinemaBlend’s own Mike Reyes, who gave the movie a mid-range three out of five stars in his review, sharing this:
While it’s unfortunate that Wrath of Man’s intricate plotting doesn’t work out in the film’s favor, that’s not to say it’s an unenjoyable experience. Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham still put on a hell of a show 16 years after their last team-up, with shootouts as fast as the dialogue, and larger than life machismo being tempered by a gruff sense of humor.
Mike Reyes enjoyed his time with Wrath of Man, especially since it re-teams Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie for the first time in years, but he was bothered with the film’s use of timeline twisting. Variety’s Peter Debruge, on the other hand, was much more keen on the thriller, likening Statham to a James Bond type with these words:
A few years ago, when Sam Mendes left the Bond franchise, Ritchie’s name was floated as a possible replacement. He didn’t take the gig, but Wrath of Man shows that he certainly could have, classing up his signature technique while never quite abandoning the cockney swagger. The approach would have suited the 007 franchise just fine. But who knows — he may have just minted his own instead.
That’s saying a lot given the prestige of 007. To stay on the positive side of Wrath of Man, The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde gave one supporting character a shoutout in his review:
Statham, meanwhile, does Statham, in the way that Cary Grant did Cary Grant, and it’s exactly what the material demands. The cast uniformly delivers, but if there’s a standout, it’s Eastwood, demonstrating that he might be better suited to playing twitchy scumbags than bland romantic leads.
It sounds like if you enjoy Jason Statham movies and are not expecting anything particularly groundbreaking, this might be your cup of tea because the actor plays the kind of role he does best. However, for Yahoo News’ Marcus Goh, it was not surprising enough:
Almost everything about the film is predictable. The worst aspect of it is how the film pretends that it's not predictable, and ends up wasting the audience's time by leading them on tangents that don't go anywhere.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich really did not like Wrath of Man, complaining that the film tried to reach into the realm of classics like Heat or Guy Richie’s early work of Snatch, but couldn’t pull all the pieces together. Here’s what he said:
It’s like watching someone try and twist a slice of Wonder Bread into a gourmet pretzel salted with dick-measuring dialogue like “you just worry about putting your asshole back in your asshole and leave this to me.” The unleaded testosterone of it all can be fun in small doses, but it’s tiring to see this much muscle straining to lift something so weightless.
Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt didn’t particularly like the forthcoming movie either, calling it rather generic for a movie made by Guy Ritchie. She contrasted it with his last movie, 2019’s The Gentleman, with these words:
There's little of the swaggering visual style Ritchie made his name on: For all its casual brutality, there's a basic-cable blandness to his execution here that feels less stripped-down than merely cheap. The social and sexual politics of The Gentlemen were generally execrable, but at least it had flair; without that, Wrath is just another loose bag of lizard-brain thrills.
Overall, there are some mixed opinions on Wrath of Man; no one found it flawless, but a number of critics enjoyed the movie for what it was. It sounds like Jason Statham fans could be the biggest winners here when the movie reaches theaters on Friday, May 7. Check out what other movies are coming soon to theaters and homes this year here on CinemaBlend.
