“Mutiny” Review

In “Mutiny,” Jason Statham stretches himself as an actor, forgoing his typical role of working class hero with a mysterious backstory on land and challenging himself instead as a working class hero with a mysterious backstory on a boat.

In all seriousness, this isn’t the first version of this Jason Statham movie; it’s not even the first such movie this year, coming on the heels of January’s “Shelter.” But while it may be strange to call a movie that features a man getting impaled by a hook comforting, that is the word that comes to mind watching this fast paced action film that knows what it is, knows what it wants to be and delivers exactly what you would expect.

Jason Statham’s latest hero is Cole Reed, a bodyguard and close friend to the CEO of a shipping company, Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram), who is finalizing the sale of his company to a competitor in order to set his son, Kameron (Chaneil Kular), up to pursue his own dreams. On the night the deal is set to become final, Tibu is assassinated by a highly trained kill team working with the local Bangkok police.

Reed takes out the kill team and discovers they were all set to work on an outgoing shipping vessel, the Artemis, that very night. Determined to get vengeance on those who organized his friend’s killing, Reed stows away on the ship, uncovers a human trafficking ring, and needs to punch, kick, and shoot his way to justice.

Is Jason Statham a man of mystery with a heroic backstory? Yes. Is there a scene of people discovering this backstory, marveling at the CV of the most heroic human being alive? Of course. Does Statham deliver pithy one liners to dead bodies? Definitely.

In short, “Mutiny” is a Jason Statham movie through and through.

In order to distinguish itself from the rest of Statham’s oeuvre of action cinema, each film needs to find its own unique hook, whether it be a highly trained network of assassins called beekeepers who constantly talk about protecting the hive in “The Beekeeper,” or in the case of “Mutiny” a self-contained story set almost entirely on a cargo ship at sea.

While director Jean-François Richet offers slightly more visual panache than your standard action fare, “Mutiny” mostly looks and feels like any number of interchangeable Jason Statham films. The setting allows for a creative maritime bloodbath, utilizing the surroundings, props, and locations specific to this moving city on the sea.

By keeping the action time-boxed on a container ship, “Mutiny” comes fast and furious with one of the shortest runtimes in recent Statham cinema, coming in less than 90 minutes if you discount credits. The characters are thin, the plot predictable, and the content offering very little new, and yet the movie delivers exactly what Jason Statham fans want and does it without any wasted energy.

Mutiny
Rated R for strong/bloody violence and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 35 minutes.

Director Jean-François Richet
Writers Lindsay Michel, J.P. Davis
Stars Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, Adrian Lester
Rating R
Running Time 95 Minutes
Genres Action, Crime, Thriller