Wrath of Man review - Guns and mayhem

2/5

Opening a high-stakes action flick with a bullet-riddled prologue is practically de rigueur. It hooks the audiences right off the bat. Thrown into the action without context builds suspense, setting the tone and pace for what’s to come. By that measure, the new Guy Ritchie film suffers a failure on launch. A band of thieves attempt to steal an armoured truck. Despite being planned with paramilitary precision, the heist goes wrong, ending in the deaths of two guards and an innocent bystander. That’s normal service resumed as far as these movies are concerned. But we don’t have all the information as our perspective is limited by the camera, which sits unruffled at the back of the truck through the whole sequence. The purpose behind this positioning is in itself puzzling. The guard driving the truck is blocked from view, but his identity has no bearing on the story. What it does is redact the violence unfolding outside the truck, which proves to be an uninspired exercise in narrative withholding.

The violence isn’t redacted after the opening sequence of course, because we're traversing in OG Guy Ritchie territory. Wrath of Man draws on the same anarchic energy as his previous ensemble pieces populated with tough guys and sundry lowlifes. But it lacks what his most watchable works had in “lock, stock and two smoking barrels”: attitude. Even his adaptation of the classic TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was full of stylistic flourishes. He can’t quite spice up his remake of Nicolas Boukhrief’s little known 2004 French heist thriller Le Convoyeur in much the same way.

Like Duchamp did with Fountain, an in-form Ritchie has the ability to turn piss into gold, especially when pastiching familiar works in the faux-Tarantino genre where he’s carved a niche out for himself. But even reuniting with old mate Jason Statham can’t get him out of his current slump. This becomes obvious in the locker room banter, which goes on for some 20-odd minutes of the movie’s first of four clear-cut parts. It’s exhausting listening to the armoured truck company’s macho men trade insults in an endless catalogue of homophobia and toxic masculinity. Their names too come from locker-room-standard idioms. Holt McCallany is the veteran Bullet. Jason Statham is the mysterious new guy, quickly dubbed as H (“like the bomb or Jesus H”). His accent also earns him the moniker “Mary Poppins.”

H joins the armoured truck company a few months after they suffered the tragedy depicted in the opening sequence. His colleagues are instantly disquieted by his silent, standoff-ish presence. Disquiet turns into dread when he effortlessly bumps off a crew (led by Post Malone) who hit his armoured truck during a routine pickup. It soon becomes clear H has some personal vendetta, which is revealed in the second part. We learn the backstory of this weaponised masculinity, why he joined the armoured truck company, and even his ringtone of choice (Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”).

Part 3 introduces us to the bad guys: a group of Afghan War vets who have turned to crime to fund the suburban lifestyles they believe they’re entitled to, but the country they served won’t afford them. They also seek the adrenaline rush of combat. All this lays the groundwork for a bloody finale, in which the thieves converge on the armoured truck company — packed

Statham as H is the archetypal unstoppable force meets an irresistible object. When the cast of familiar names (Holt McCallany, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Chris Reilly, Josh Hartnett, Laz Alonso, Raúl Castillo, DeObia Oparei among others) aren’t shooting at each other, they’re busy lobbing slurs in a testosterone-fuelled game of one-upmanship. Sample this one from Statham for starters: “You just worry about putting your arsehole back in your arsehole, and leave this to me.” Statham’s natural comedic charisma is however eschewed to create a legend of an executioner without emotion. The problem with these netherworlds populated almost exclusively by remorseless killers is you don’t feel the impact of every gunshot. The emotional undercurrent to H’s backstory isn’t effectively expressed through the set pieces. So, the payoff is virtually non-existent.

For a shoot-’em-up, Wrath of Man is gleefully trigger-happy. You will surely get more than enough bang for your buck. But if you want that OG Guy Ritchie bravado, look elsewhere. Replace Statham with any recurring vehicle starring compatriots Liam Neeson or Gerard Butler, you will likely find about the same measure of wattage behind the wheel. The Ice Road and Has Fallen films feel like kindred efforts in a way. When the scale doesn’t match the skill, what you get are such inconsequential movies. And Wrath of Man seals its fate as the latest in a continuing line of duds from Ritchie, right from its opening scene.

About The Author: Prahlad Srihari is a film and music writer based in Bangalore. His work has appeared on Firstpost, Little White Lies, Quint and Open Magazine.