Movie Review: Wrath of Man (R - 119 minutes)

 

I went to see Wrath of Man in the theater, just happy to see something in the theater and really expecting this to be a movie that could have been a throwaway January dump flick in a regular year. There is definitely something to be said about a low expectations bar because I was pleasantly surprised!

Wrath of Man begins with an in-truck view of a cash truck heist.  It starts out pretty smoothly, but then things begin to go wrong and the guards and a couple of civilians get killed.  We jump forward a couple of months to joining new security recruit “H” as he starts working for the security company. He passes all the tests at just the right level and barely impresses his new supervisor, “Bullet”.  

After a few rides, he is on a run with “Boy Sweat Dave” (oof, these names) and Bullet when some nogoodniks attempt to rob their truck.  H swiftly and handily eliminates every single one of the crew that attempted to rob them, even their leader, Post Malone.

The rest of the security company employees are very impressed by H and even the cops seem grateful, since there are little to no consequences of H killing a handful of dudes. He’s back on the job almost immediately.  Which is a good thing, because then he’s on another truck that is almost robbed, but this time, the attempted robbers get one look at him and take off running.  While most of the security team is thankful, there are a couple who are a little curious why robbers are terrified of H.  The movie then has an interesting switch, and we start following another group of characters.  This group of recently returned army vets is struggling to get back to ‘normal’ and make ends meet when their commanding officer helps put into play a plan. The two storylines converge in a not-entirely-unexpected way that is still incredibly engaging and interesting while being brutal and action packed.

The movie is a remake of the 2004 French Film “Le Convoyeur” (Cash Truck) and I am very curious to look that up and see if the interesting story shifts were pulled from that or unique to this version. Having seen almost all other Guy Ritchie movies (I even saw Swept Away and that one about King Arthur), this feels similar but different to his first few Toff Guy movies. You can see the bones of Lock Stock, Snatch, and RocknRolla in it, but it is much less fun.  Shifting the storyline POV several times was very interesting and kept me guessing as to how the end might play out.  The set pieces were solid and the action good, and the climax more gunfire-heavy than I wanted, but it did fit the story.

Jason Statham was perfect in the lead as he always is in Guy Ritchie movies crafted for him. Of course, as with all Statham-Ritchie projects, I wanted Jason Flemyng there too, so I was disappointed he was not in this.  Statham glares and beats his way through every obstacle, perfectly staying within a well-fitted box.

Holt McCallany plays Bullet as a somewhat smarmy too-friendly partner. He fits the role well, and his partnership with Statham was a nice balance.  Having not seen Josh Hartnett for a while, it was nice to see him as Dave, even though his character was a bit of a tool.  Ritchie staple Eddie Marsan also shows up to run the security company with a barely passable American accent.

The group playing the army vets consisting of Jeffrey Donovan (maybe I should re-binge Burn Notice from the beginning), Scott Eastwood, Deobia Oparei, Raul Castillo, and Chris Reilly were very interesting and really had the most heavy lifting to do in the movie. In another version of this story, they would have been the leads and it would have been their movie. In fact – you’ve probably seen a version of that movie at some point.

And there is random Andy Garcia – just two scenes, for almost no reason, but I appreciated it.

Overall, the movie was very interesting, certainly engaging, and while a little gun-happy for my taste, it kept me intrigued right up until the end.  Worth a watch.

7 out of 10.