Jason Statham Round-Up
The son of a street trader and a dancer, a competitive diver who sidelined into martial arts and then took up acting once his thirties approached… The Stath, admittedly, is an unlikely movie star. But then again most of my action heroes favourites are. Move to one side Willis and Gibson and everybody else seems to come physique first, charisma second and thespian abilities a distant third. At the very least our Jase can move. As convincing as a Hong Kong master when choreographed by Corey Yuen, a technician he has collaborated often and with wild success. Unlike many of the wrestlers and body builders he replaced at the multiplexes, he feels graceful and confident with stunts, shoot-outs and rough stuff. He certainly isn’t a one trick pony like some (see Van Damme’s splits or Seagal’s fast hands). A Stath film delivers grizzled hardboiled gruffness with a varied amount of pulse raising physicality. The Transporter. Crank. The Mechanic. The Meg. And when push comes to shove he can do comedy, or even romance, and he comes alive as the savvy muscle in a gangster flick, the genre where he first made his bones. Not every Jason Statham film is decent, very few are art but he has the goods no matter the budget or the ambition. And as 21st century Arnie replacements go, he wallops the mark more often than even the family friendly The Rock, the most obvious candidate for the crown and a A-lister who The Stath has his best chemistry with. I’ve had a lot of laughs revisiting his back catalogue over the past six month… This round-up is the end of that deep dive.
Revolver (2004)
Guy Ritchie directs Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Andre 3000 in this existential crime cut-up where a just released from prison mastermind fights his demons externally and internally.
Kicked to death on release due to Ritchie overreaching beyond what people liked him for, being in love with Madonna and the suggestion that their mutual interest in Kabbalah was baked deep into the mysteries of the plot. This probably owes a lot more to Fight Club and Old Boy than it does any obscure Jewish mysticism. And while Revolver doesn’t always make sense, the experience of it is quite exhilarating if you leave your brain at the door. Ritchie has made a fantastic looking movie, pretentious but artful. His crime set pieces are electrifying. Just look at Mark Strong’s beige assassin’s last stand – told in edits and camera moves paced to the rhythm of a steady heartbeat. Nathaniel Méchaly’s score is a lost ominous banger. Liotta’s crumbling kingpin is one of his best, seediest performances. And the esoteric material might stretch Statham but he is never overwhelmed. The trapped gambler making moves within moves, through a world of genuinely vicious predators, feels more my speed than the ‘Carry On Get Carter’ mood of Ritchie and Statham’s previous beloved collaborations. Jason is the steady centre, your point of bearing through all the existential gubbins. What’s it all about? Ultimately the fears and doubts inside your head that hold you back. When Jason’s Jake Green passes his internal monologue demons onto Liotta’s Dorothy Macha it feels truly cathartic. Overdue a reassessment.
8
Wild Card (2015)
Simon West directs Jason Statham, Milo Ventimiglia and Hope Davis in the Las Vegas-set thriller where a degenerate gambler burns a lot of bridges on his way out of Sin City.
This is almost Revolver 2.0. Mainstream, user friendly, clean. The same basic plot and ultimate point with all those frustrating fuzzy edges smoothed off. Again, not a loved Statham entry due to it only having three fight sequences. But they are three corkers from Corey Yuen so in my opinion this has quality over quantity. The ‘Magnolia is Las Vegas’ plotting probably is too loose for something marketed as a fight flick. And I personally couldn’t tell the difference between Anne Heche and Hope Davis’ characters. I just thought the nice blonde lady had two jobs. All in all, this has a lovely freewheelin’ vibe. Statham grasps lightly onto the character work from a lesser William Goldman script and Stanley Tucci eats up his third act cameo appearance.
7
Fast X (2023)
Louis Leterrier directs Vin Diesel, Jason Momoa and Michelle Rodriguez in this action extravaganza where Dom’s crew of street racing super spies are framed, split up and generally fucked about with by the vengeful son of their Fast Five nemesis.
A return to form for the franchise. This hits the bonnet crunching delirium of Fast Five and whatever Six was called. It is formulated so that after an hour of ensemble action (culminating in a sexily lengthy demolition derby around Rome’s landmarks) everybody splits up and gets their own mini mission, tailored set-piece. Rodriquez and Charlize Theron escape a black site in the best individual strand, Dom races, the kid gets to hangout with Uncle John Cena in an all action road movie. Almost like a jukebox musical, everyone you care about gets their own physics defying song-and-dance number. Filmed around the stars and the hangers-on busy schedules without ever having to worry if Helen Mirren and Tyrese Gibson are available on the same week. The Stath returns as Shaw in an extended cameo, only to race off to his next mission in some future release by the second scene… it is a bit of a cheat having him on the poster or even the film in this round-up. Brie Larson collects a paycheck with one of the least committed performances from an Oscar winner in recent memory. Jason Momoa absolutely brings it as the camp, deranged villain. It is his movie and he walks off with it. Delicious. Lots of dumb fun, full of carnage and ends on a genuinely unsettling, nail biting cliffhanger.
8
Safe (2012)
Boaz Yakin directs Jason Statham, Chris Sarandon and Robert John Burke in this action thriller where a homeless man with a dark past and child maths genius try to outrun and outsmart various killer factions.
The most bog standard Stath movie covered this week. A nifty time hopping prologue sets the two leads’ joint predicament up. Then we get some top tier ass kicking on a subway train, then some lively chasing… And then the plot gets overly complicated with four separate squads of goons wanting Jase’s MMA trained (former cop / former government killer) down-and-out’s ward. Ends on an anti-climax. The first half is stronger than the second.
6
Cellular (2004)
David R. Ellis. directs Kim Basinger, Chris Evans and Jason Statham in this thriller where a dude picks up a random call on his mobile phone from a kidnapped woman and cannot hang up until he rescues her family.
Perennial anti-hero The Stath as an out-and-out villain? Nah. His stock role is too underwritten and his Umerikan accent too forced for this to be his movie. Top billed Basinger also struggles with a weak part and repetitive dialogue. The meat of the movie sees Chris Evan’s everyman racing about, trying to keep signal bars and battery levels up as he disrupts the naughty villains. It is more accidental comedy than crime thriller but it passes an evening with little touching the sides.
5
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 