Title: Mutiny
Describe This Movie Using One The Adventures of Robin Hood Quote:
MAID MARIAN: You speak treason!
ROBIN OF LOCKSLEY: Fluently.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Jason Statham’s out for revenge. Again.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Jimmy McNultys out of 5.
Tagline: “There’s blood in the water.”
Better Tagline: “That’s the other Statham franchise.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Cole Reed (Jason Statham) has a pretty good gig as bodyguard to billionaire shipping magnate Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram). Or “had,” I guess, because Campallo is assassinated by Bangkok police and others shortly after completing the sale of his company KGM. Framed for the murder, Reed sneaks aboard one of Campallo’s ships (the Artemis), where one of the deceased assassins worked. On board, he discovers an even bigger conspiracy afoot.
“Critical” Analysis: If you omit the giant shark and (some) Guy Ritchie movies from his résumé, you’ll see Jason Statham’s career has followed a … certain pattern. Going all the way back to 2002’s The Transporter, Statham has practically cornered the market on playing taciturn badasses. Recent years have given us his turns as Deckard Shaw and well as The Beekeeper, A Working Man, and Shelter. Those last three are pretty much the same movie, minus the setting and whatever atrocity trigger’s the Stath’s homicidal thirst for vengeance.
So any new Statham killfest forces us to ask: what mysterious background will his character come from? Ex-MI6 (Shelter)? Ex-SAS (the Fast & Furious movies)? Ex-Royal Marine Commando (A Working Man *and* Shelter)? Ex-secret agency that doesn’t exist but is nonetheless totally awesome (The Beekeeper)? So many to choose from!
Which brings us to Mutiny. We don’t learn much about Reed’s past (aside from he used to be a London cop) until about midway through the movie. So I won’t spoil it here. Suffice to say, we’re not breaking any patterns.
Plane director Jean-François Richet ticks off another mode of transportation by setting the bulk of the movie on a container ship. Of course, Reed is only able to get on it thanks to stealing the passport of the one dead assassin who also happened to be a bald white guy with four days’ worth of stubble. I was initially going to say it’d be unusual to find someone like that in Bangkok, but on second thought…
Once on board, Reed discovers the real reason behind disrupting the KGM sale. Someone (Simon Bluth’s Mr. Daniles, introduced on the mainland) is making a tidy profit off using KGM’s ships for human trafficking. Reed finds the Artemis prisoners through his apparently superhuman senses (which are demonstrated in earlier scenes like a kind of sensory disorder). His lone ally on the Artemis is Angie (Annabelle Wallis), the ship’s third mate. Much like Dante in Clerks, Angie wasn’t even supposed to be here today. Luckily, she proves to be a capable ally.
All that’s left is for Statham to (mostly single-handedly) plow through a melting pot of scumbag sailors and mercenaries. And much as he did in Plane, Richet lenses some surprisingly gripping action. Reed is a brutally efficient killer, and while the mayhem is intermittent for the first half, we build to a pretty damned satisfying climax.
While it isn’t the first “Die Hard on a Boat” movie (that would be Under Siege), Mutiny works that formula with brisk economy. It also leaned into the comparison in early promotional materials. Every generation gets the bald action savior they deserve. And with Bruce Willis currently out of action, Jason Statham is the only logical choice (sorry, Dwayne). Mutiny won’t change the world, but it delivers that punitive extrajudicial justice we crave these days.
Mutiny is in theaters today.
