Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wrath of Man’ on Hulu, the Guy Ritchie-Jason Statham Reunion We’ve Maybe Been Waiting For

Now on Hulu after a theatrical run in the spring of 2021, Wrath of Man is Guy Ritchie’s long-awaited — Long-overdue? Inevitable? Vaguely anticipated? — reunion with his old pal Jason Statham. They began their careers as a dynamic duo with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and it makes sense that they’d assume the position as Ritchie continues returning to form after 2019’s crime caper The Gentlemen, which followed a dozen or so years of forgettable paycheck fodder: go-nowhere franchise hopefuls The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, two sapless Sherlock Holmeses and his WGAF live-action Aladdin remake. Anyway, will this new Ritchie-Statham pairing — a loose remake of the 2004 French thriller Cash Truck — invoke old feelings long-tread, or push them into new territory? Let’s find out.

WRATH OF MAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The camera sits and swivels inside an armored truck as its driver and passenger banter. It stays situated as the road is blocked, men with machine guns surround it, a cutting torch slices through a side hatch and a flash grenade is tossed inside. BAM. The guards are pulled out and all we hear from inside is mayhem: shouting, gunfire. The bad guys unload the cash and the movie cuts away just as it’s getting interesting — although it’s really not as interesting as it’s gonna get, because we haven’t seen Jason Statham yet.

So voila, cue Jason Statham, who plays a fella known primarily as H. We meet him during an interview with the armored-trucking outfit. A genial type dubbed Bullet (Holt McCallany) hires him, warns him about the incident — you know the one we saw in the opening scene, where two of his coworkers were killed a while back, then runs him through orientation and training: strength tests, shooting tests, driving tests, but no personality tests, which might have turned over some logs and found some ugly grubs? I dunno. More on that in a bit, maybe. They walk through a locker room full of tough fellas who seem very afraid of being gay or meeting a gay person or admitting they’re gay, and Bullet introduces the new guy by saying things such as, “This is H, like the bomb or Jesus H,” and “Meet Hollow Bob and Boy Sweat Dave,” who are played respectively by Rocci Williams and Josh “Lucky Number Slevin” Hartnett.

Now H is the type of strong, silent fella who doesn’t make friends easily. He agrees to play some billiards and drink a beer with Bullet, and he ends up in bed with the only woman employed at the place, Dana (Niamh Algar), but he doesn’t seem to enjoy any of it all too much, and his brow is so furrowed it’d make a fleet of John Deeres feel inadequate, and his stare could bore holes through Fort Knox. He looks suspect, or maybe everyone looks suspect to him. As happens in movies starring Jason Statham, Jason Statham’s character doesn’t just have a string of average days at work and then he retires happy and with no serious hospital stays. No, Jason Statham’s character’s armored truck is held up by Post Malone and a crew of thugs, and instead of following protocol or comforting a visibly shaken Boy Sweat Dave, he calmly Terminators right through every last one of them, and doesn’t seem to enjoy that all too much either. So what in tarnation is this guy’s story? No spoilers, but this being a Guy Ritchie movie, it’ll surely involve overlapping crosscut narratives, numerous time jumps (three consecutive title cards read, THREE MONTHS LATER, FIVE MONTHS EARLIER and THREE WEEKS LATER), three reiterations of the film’s key development from different angles and a group of dudes who call themselves Nos. 1-6, possibly because Mr. Pink and Mr. Blonde and the like were already taken.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Guy Ritchie’s career wouldn’t exist without Quentin Tarantino, and Wrath of Man is very much a reminder of that. It might be the most truly Guy Ritchie film Guy Ritchie has made since RocknRolla.

Performance Worth Watching: Well, Statham plays his one note pretty well as a blank-slate character that even Descartes might have found a little implausible. Ritchie surrounds his star with guys like Eddie Marsan and Andy Garcia, who play to type, and Hartnett and Rob Delaney, who steal a scene or three, and McCallany plays an upbeat guy, because the movie desperately needs one of those. Fun ensemble, I guess, even if nobody truly stands out.

Memorable Dialogue: “Dave, you just worry about putting your arsehole back in your arsehole, and leave this to me.” — H

Sex and Skin: None. TBJATMTBFMTATWTF: Too Busy Jumping Ahead Three Months Then Back Five Months Then Ahead Three Weeks To F—-.

Our Take: Wrath of Man is a bit of a dadbod screenplay: Saggy midsection with an otherwise decent top and bottom. It starts off rocking like a truly reinvigorated Ritchie, with gripping action and amusingly ridiculous dialogue — “You look like a shrinkwrapped Rolls Royce” is how Bullet describes H) — and it’s vibrant and funny even with Statham’s dead-seriousness as its focal point.

But the stripped-down approach only lasts so long as the film becomes a twisted-snake narrative, and later reveals that it’s actually two snakes tied in a knot. And the second of those snakes is less interesting because it’s about Nos. 1-6, one of whom is a shitbird with a facial scar played by Scott Eastwood, son of Clint, and he plays the shitbird, not the scar, sorry if that was confusingly worded. Anyway, the shitbird and his cronies aren’t gifted with gab like the people in the first act; they just talk in boilerplate let’s-make-a-plan/one-last-score dialogue, and could really benefit from some cooler, snappier nicknames.

You’ll prefer the first snake because it’s the one where Statham doesn’t say a lot and everyone around him makes up for it, and you’ll wish the snake was longer. The good thing is, this leads up to the third act, which I’ll describe by beating the metaphor to death like it’s Whacking Day: Snake fight! And it’s a pretty good one, leaving us reasonably thrilled and satisfied, although not quite as elated and invigorated as some of its genre-film contemporaries, like John Wick, the first Jack Reacher or maybe even the terrific new Bob Odenkirk vehicle Nobody. Ritchie’s hitting his marks, which is enjoyable to watch, but he’s not being particularly ambitious or making the best use of his talented cast (Statham can be funny as hell, so why not take advantage?). Maybe next time he’ll make a movie that’s more tightly coiled and kinetically energized — and one that’s actually about something other than itself.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Wrath of Man could use a little more concentrated wrath and a little less farting around, but it’s nonetheless a good, solid, acceptably twisty action-thriller.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.