Wrath of Man Fizzles
Wrath of Man, Miramax (2021)
By C. A. Ramirez
Written and produced by famed British filmmaker, Guy Ritchie, Wrath of Man is a terribly executed thriller heist that fails to excite at every turn. Next to Tarantino, Richie was renowned for his out-of-sequence storytelling. Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels were blockbuster hits that rocketed Richie to the top of the Hollywood heap. Wrath of Man is not one of these triumphs. Instead, it struggles to entertain the audience as a disjointed story takes you on a ride that feels longer than a trip back from Vegas in a car with no air conditioning.
Jason Statham stars as “H”, a stone-faced boss of criminal repute on a war path of vengeance as he seeks to kill the men who murdered his son. This “plot” has been regurgitating itself through Hollywood ever since Kevin Bacon starred in the exact same role in 2007’s Death Sentence. It was also done, very successfully, with the John Wick series; so, by all accounts, Hollywood does not need to keep pushing these tired movie troupes. Wrath of Man has the pacing of a peg legged Octogenarian managing steep stairs; just when you think the minutiae of a substance-less script couldn’t get any worse, Richie throws you a shovel, holds a revolver to your head, and forces you to keep digging.
The inciting incident in this movie is when Statham’s son, Dougie, is killed by armed men during an armored truck robbery. This sequence is explored for the next hour, three separate times. Each time we are given a new point of view on what happens, and none of its revelations are jaw-dropping, mysterious, or even remotely interesting. The revenge plot developed by Richie is so paper thin that the only thing separating this movie from the excitement of a puppet show is a bright light and popsicle sticks.
The visual tone is as drab as its setting; the interiors of shapeless and faceless office buildings. The scenic monotony is broken up by industrial settings and sparsely populated public streets. No one outside of the cast of characters exists in this world. There are no bystanders or people walking their dogs back and forth. The inciting incident is the only scene that takes place outdoors, and it has the emotional weight of a sociopath realizing he has killed yet another hooker. The directionless scenes are glued together by overly ominous cello music that sounds like it’s being drawn by a cellist on barbiturates. The tone of the movie is forced in every way, desperate to add tension and drama to a script that is free of both.
Will our hero, H., make it out alive? I barely did. Wrath of Man, Miramax (2021)
Jason Statham can act, but in Wrath of Man, he doesn’t. Someone must have shot up Statham with some sort of stupefying concoction before each take because his energy is that of a castrated zombie. Say what you want about Keanu Reeves and his acting range, but he is excellent as John Wick, the recently widowed contract killer. Reeves adds emotional depth, and we journey along with him as he ascends from the ashes of his former life, embracing his notoriety through fantastically taught action set pieces, exacting revenge on Greyjoy; and the audience is there to savor every vengeful morsel. Wrath of Man is a gruesome imitation of this tired story mechanism. John Wick works because of its well-tuned action sequences. Terminator 2 has excellent pacing, and it is nothing but action sequences. Wrath of Man stumbles right out of the gate by trying to force the audience to care about characters they never get to know.
Guy Richie has fallen, and he might not get back up. The king of lines that could rip and tear through hardened goons and thugs has been replaced by the kind of mush-mouthed dialogue that usually graces films made by Fred Durst. The London native should stay there. Wrath of Man is set in Los Angeles, and the dialogue reflects that of someone who lives in the posh parts, far from the nerve center that iconic movies like To Live and Die in L.A., Collateral, and Chinatown explore with all the flair and knowledge of a cabby twenty years on the job. In one scene, Statham walks up to a taco truck and orders, “two burritos, please.”. The guy in the truck replies with, “sure.”. This exchange is brief, but it's some of the earliest dialogue spoken by Statham’s character, and it sets the stage for what is to come; a deluge of meaningless dialogue that fails to elucidate, entertain, and engage the audience in any memorable way. In what world does an Englishman walk up to a taco truck, order “two burritos”, and get a one-worded answer that ends with a burrito in each of Statham’s hands. Give us some personality and organic back and forth. The correct response is, “que?”.
The first scenes of a movie tell you more about the film than its last, and Wrath of Man bores and bewilders you from minute one. Any backstory that could have been given to Statham’s nearly monosyllabic character was ditched for an overly stylized movie whose foundation was built upon sand. Nothing works in this film, and the plot fails to gain any real emotional traction along with its characters. The double crosses and twists that are hallmarks of Richie’s films are completely absent in Wrath of Man, replaced with ham-handed segues and belligerent exposition. Instead of a film that is saturated in an identifiably unique tone, we are faced with a film that has no sense of direction and even less when it comes to its plot and dialogue. Richie needs to make films that have a reason to exist. A sequel to Rock N Rolla would have been a better project to pursue. After film flops like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the ghastly reboot of Aladdin, Richie would be wise to leave the straight-to-video movie ideas in the bin and concentrate on expanding his original works. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. may not have been an Oscar worthy blockbuster, but it's ten times better than the steaming pile of celluloid that is Wrath of Man.
