Wrath of Man (2021) - Guy Ritchie

 By Maria Sofia Bassit Gomez.

Wrath of Man, the grandson of The Godfather.

Wrath of man is a 2021 action thriller directed by Guy Ritchie with co-writer Ivan Atkinson, inspired by the 2004 French film “Cash Truck” by Nicolas Boukhrief. In its first year, the movie rolled up an astonishing 125.7 million USD worldwide in the box office with the low budget of 40 million USD.

The main cast are Jason Statham as Patrick “H”, Holt McCallany as Haiden “Bullet” Blaire. Jeffrey Donovan as Jackson, Darrell D’Silva Babs Olusanmokun Cameron Jack as Hargreaves’ henchmen, Eli Brown as Dougie, Niamh Algar as Dana Curtis and celebrity singer Post Malone as one of the robbers.

Warning: This review contain spoilers about the movie. Proceed at your own risk.

The 2h film take place in Los Angeles, where divorced father Harry, or H, lives with his son Dougie. H recently joined Fortico Security, an armored truck company, after saving his mentor Bullet from an arranged kidnapping. His astonishing god-like marksmanship sparked conspiracy among his colleagues while impressing the higher ups. H’s flashbacks later reveal a story of loss, hate, and revenge.

Jason Statham is a big figure when it comes to action movies. With his “ordinary guy” image, his role of the cold soldier, robber, ex-gang leader, hitman, leaves the audience in awe due to the contrast.

The cast, in my opinion, was well chosen. All the respective actors fitted their character like Cinderella’s glass slippers, and the same could be said for Post Malone as a cold-blooded robber. The camera quality was astonishingly crystal clear and some of the jumpsuits were not dizzy like the usual. The sound quality was something I personally loved the most. Maybe because I watched the movie in the cinema, the sharp pistol sounds made it feel as if you were in close range. Unlike the soft “phew” gun sounds Hollywood seems to love, the guns sounds were accurately strong, piercing, and almost frightening when they came unexpectedly.

Another technical aspect I did enjoy was how Guy Ritchie included “acts” in the movie, where each act is titled the last line said in the act. In each of the 3 acts, there are renaissance collages of snakes, religious figures, and medieval paintings, which highlight a tone of eeriness, mistrust and back-stabbing to the film. The music also emphasizes the emotions Ritchie wanted his audience to feel, like a broken white church left to rot in an overgrown forest.

Unfortunately, the film is still a classic heist archetype movie. Some elements such as the dialogue are extremely one-faced and bland, leaving no room for thought or analysis. The characters behaves almost unnaturally to H, yet it isn’t the actor’s fault but more likely the writers. Who sleeps with a freshly employed guy after he murdered 2 robbers? How wasn’t there an investigation conducted for the first case nor the second one? Why is no one suspecting H to be a professional killer or hitman? How could the owner of Fortico stop police investigation? How could nobody find it suspicious that H, the guy who could barely pass the gun test, was able to successfully overthrow two consecutive robberies?

More questions were merging with all over the place flashbacks. The most confusing part of the movie were the flashbacks as they do not tell a linear timeline of H’s story, rather just a small fragment of his life which seems like they almost have no relevance to the scene that caused them. It took me until the last part of the movie to somewhat understand what happened. It would have been easier if Ritchie included the flashbacks that had relevance to the moment that happened right before.

Another minus point is the toxic masculinity in the portico setting, while it is true it is mostly a male populated work. A lot of the jokes mainly focus on grooming young less “manly” boys, such as calling H Bullet’s boyfriend, or giving H his lockers filled with homosexual oriented pictures as a joke. However, the setting seems to be realistic to most real-life tough jobs.

Another point I’d like to add is the lack of diversity in Jason Statham’s roles. In all the 38 movies he has acted in, Jason was featured as the tough guy with little to no emotion, sense of empathy or even flaw. While this movie showcases Statham as a grieving bloodthirsty father who lost his son, it’s only used as a façade for H’s motives.

It would have been better if they emphasized the scenes where Jason was working toward his grief or showing a little more compassion and affection to his son Dougie.

What we can be certain of is seeing his son dying in front of him is something that doesn’t come without trauma. It is possible to simply sweep his lack of response to the event as processing his grief differently from the rest. Yet, for H to change his entire identity, join a Fortico, meticulously study the group, and “investigate” every single gang member or Fortico’s worker just to find his son’s murderer and seek justice for Dougie. I do believe that Jason tried to incline a bit of softness while acting alongside co-star Elie Brown, who played his son, while not being all “wimpy” for the action-based movie. Subtle things such as acting surprised about Dougie’s facts or going to his favorite taco food truck express what kind of heartwarming father H is.

Bottom line, the movie scored 66% in Rotten Tomatoes, with most reviewers collectively agreeing that the movie is a breeze of fresh air among its ancestors, while still resembling the famous ‘The Godfather’ with the mafioso mysterious main lead and his followers being the ultimate brown nose with no self-concept or unique identity that helps the main lead create utter chaos to his own advantages and benefits.

The movie also gives Statham a new area to dabble in as the cold yet compassionate father who crumbled the earth for the men who killed his beloved son, Beloved Dougie.