Movie Scene: Hard aul work!

After ‘The Mechanic’, ‘The Transporter’ and the aforementioned apiarist-themed punch-a-athon, it seems ‘The Stath’ has finally run out of job titles.

Co-written by his ‘Expendables’ co-star Sly Stallone, Ayer and Chuck Dixon, the film sees Statham as Cade, a former Marine turned construction supervisor, working for Joe Gonzalez (Michael Pena). After Joe’s daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) goes missing thanks to the Russian mob, Joe tasks Cade with tapping into his former military past to bring Jenny home.

If this sounds familiar, it’s no surprise given that there’s any number of films out there with exactly the same premise; ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ and ‘Taken’ immediately spring to mind.

Much like those two films, it’s pretty rubbish.

There’s a certain level of fun that can be had with any Jason Statham vehicle; he knows himself that intense glares, mad fighting skills and the ability to crack wise is exactly the man’s wheelhouse albeit an overused one. Even if they aren’t your cup of tea, you can at least get a giggle. Unfortunately, there’s no such luck here. The screenplay is completely po-faced serious; the most fun I had was laughing at the idea of Darius Rucker’s version of ‘Wagon Wheel’ being played at a tough biker bar and Cade’s daughter (we’ll come to that) asking, with a straight face, if her father killed her grandfather.

In an attempt to give Cade some level of emotional backstory he’s a single father whose kid lives with her grandad and has a blind bestie (David Harbour) whose life he saved back in his Marine days. But people don’t go to his films for the backstory, they go for the action. The film has plenty on show, if only it didn’t have the worst editing committed to celluloid.

If you’re okay with razor sharp cuts that rob the action of energy, then this is the film for you.

Everyone involved, from the Stath to Harbour and down to the rent-a-villain Russian gangsters, gnaw away on the scenery and cringe-inducing dialogue.

That David Ayer, once known as one of the best crime directors in the business thanks to films like ‘End of Watch’, ‘Street Kings’, and ‘Harsh Times’ has been reduced to doing something of this ilk, is sad.

Getting through it was hard work!