Statham on the attack

Here's another quick movie tip before I get back to talking about books and adult beverages.  I recently caught Wrath of Man, starring Jason Statham, at my local multiplex. The film opened in early May, but due to the last gasp (I hope!) of the pandemic, didn't make it to my theater until late June. In any event, I found it to be a smart, interesting action thriller.

Statham plays a guy who gets a job as driver/security officer for an armored car company, and quickly distinguishes himself as really cut out for the job when he almost immediately foils an attempted robbery. Anyway, to make a long story short- and not reveal too much- the audience soon learns that Statham, whose character is simply known as "H" to his colleagues, wanted to get hired by the company in the hopes that a very specific set of robbers would attempt a robbery so that he could confront them (unfortunately, the initial robbery he thwarted involved different crooks than the ones he was looking for).

Why does "H" want to confront that special group of robbers? And why is he so darn comfortable and competent when confronting dangerous outlaws?  That's the foundation of this gritty, entertaining thriller, which I do think could have been about 20% less complicated plot-wise. But the movie never loses you, and you always wonder what will happen next. In the end, Mr. Statham, director Guy Ritchie, and the rest of the film's creative team delivered a nice afternoon at the movies.