Brief Story Line
Mason (Jason Statham - A Working Man, The Beekeeper etc) had been living in recluse for many years in a small island near Scotland where he got his necessities delivered every now and then by young girl named Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach - Hamnet, So Akward Academy TV series etc) and her uncle. Due to some reasons, Jessie ended up staying with Mason for a while.
Unfortunately Mason's past caught up with him as a group of people assigned by Loretta (Naomie Ackie - The End of the F***ing World TV series, I Wanna Dance With Somebody etc) were trying to capture him. Things gotten worse for Mason when Loretta's former boss Menafort (Bill Nighy - Harlan Coben's Lazarus mini series, Role Play etc) instructed the assassin with code name Workman (stuntman Bryan Vigier) to kill him. Mason had no choice but to escape from those people while trying to get Jessie to safety.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Over the past few years, I thought films with Jason Statham as the lead star (except for Expendables 4) have been getting better as they no longer just focused on action but had more depth to the story and his character was more interesting. And this was definitely one of those as I thought it was really entertaining. In the beginning, the movie might feel a bit slow as it focused more on Mason's life. But as the story progressed with the appearance of Jessie and helped by the dog (Jack), it became livelier. The film was more exciting when people from Mason's past started to disrupt his peaceful life.
The action in this movie was not too over the top and felt grounded with hand to hand combats using any kind of weapons, intense car chase, gun fights without extreme use of computer graphics. Although, there were scenes with special effects in the beginning which would explain the many names of CG artists during closing credits. Before I forgot, there was no mid or post end credit scene here. My wife and I enjoyed this film not only because of the action plus seeing Jason Statham kick-a$$, but also the story. It might not have the most original plot but the strength for me was Statham's chemistry with his co-star Bodhi Rae Breathnach. In fact I read that she got praise from Statham for her performance here.
The film was written by Ward Parry and directed by Ric Roman Waugh whose most recent works were disaster action Greenland 2: Migration and action thriller Kandahar. Aside from the above cast, the movie also supported by Daniel Mays (The Thursday Murder Club, A Thousand Blows TV series etc) as the person helping Mason, Harriet Walter (Ponies TV series etc) as British Prime Minister, Tom Wu (Marco Polo TV series etc) as Kamal Shah and few others in minor roles. Obviously the movie relied heavily on Statham's star power who was still very awesome in the action scenes (he also served as one of the producers). Btw I think this one is a British production as all the cast were British and the film was shot in UK and Ireland. It had its world premiere in London and would only be released in the US on 26 January. As usual, Indonesian audience had the chance to see this a bit earlier.
Overall this was another Statham's entertaining action thriller movie. My wife and I had good time seeing this film and we also like the ending. Although it was pretty conclusive but it also opened up to the possibility of sequel should this be a commercial success. Despite a little goof in the beginning with the words spoken by someone who found Jessie for the first time and an unoriginal plot, I still felt this was enjoyable. So if you are like me and my wife who are fans of Statham's action, then I think you would like this. But if you prefer high octane, explosive action movie or anything that was greatly written, then this might not be to your liking. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment