In “Mutiny,” Jason Statham stretches himself as an actor, forgoing his typical role as a working-class hero with a mysterious backstory on land in favor of playing a working-class hero with a mysterious backstory on a boat.
In all seriousness, this isn’t the first version of this Statham movie; it’s not even the first such movie this year, coming on the heels of January’s “Shelter.” But while it may be strange to call a movie that features a man getting impaled by a hook comforting, that is the word that comes to mind watching this fast-paced action film that knows what it is, knows what it wants to be and delivers exactly what you would expect.
Statham’s latest hero is Cole Reed, a bodyguard and close friend to shipping company CEO Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram), who is finalizing the sale of his business to a competitor to set up his son, Kameron (Chaneil Kular), to pursue his own dreams. On the night the deal is set to become final, Tibu is assassinated by a highly trained kill team working with local Bangkok police.
Reed takes out the kill team and discovers they were scheduled to work that very night on an outgoing shipping vessel, the Artemis. Determined to get vengeance on those who organized his friend’s killing, Reed stows away, uncovers a human trafficking ring and needs to punch, kick and shoot his way to justice.
Is Statham a man of mystery with a heroic backstory? Yes. Is there a scene of people discovering this backstory, marveling at the CV of the most heroic human being alive? Of course. Does Statham deliver pithy one-liners to dead bodies? Definitely.
In short, “Mutiny” is a Statham movie through and through.
To distinguish itself from the rest of Statham’s oeuvre of action cinema, each film needs to find its own hook, whether it be a highly trained network of assassins called “beekeepers” who talk constantly about protecting the hive in “The Beekeeper” or, in the case of “Mutiny,” a self-contained story set almost entirely on a cargo ship at sea.
While director Jean-François Richet offers slightly more visual panache than your standard action fare, “Mutiny” mostly looks and feels like any number of interchangeable Statham films. The setting allows for a creative maritime bloodbath, using the surroundings, props and locations specific to this moving city on the sea.
By keeping the action time-boxed on a container ship, “Mutiny” comes fast and furious with one of the shortest runtimes in recent Statham cinema, wrapping up at less than 90 minutes if you discount credits. The characters are thin, the plot predictable and the content offers very little new, and yet the movie delivers exactly what Statham fans want and without wasted energy.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“Mutiny” Rated R for strong/bloody violence and language. Running Time: 1 hour and 35 minutes. Directed by Jean-François Richet. Written by Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis. Starring Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller and Adrian Lester. Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller.
