"Wrath of Man" initially overwritten but slick and brashly entertaining

Wrath of Man (2021)

If 2020’s “The Gentlemen” was quintessential Guy Ritchie—cheeky, cool, and profane—albeit in a lower key that was less kinetic, “Wrath of Man” operates within a grimmer, darker tone to appropriately match the wrath of one man. It’s never as eccentric as something like 2000's "Snatch," but Ritchie's M.O. of cool-looking showoff filmmaking is still on full display. No matter that the material is based on a 2004 French film called “Le convoyeur (Cash Truck),” this is a deceptively simple heist-cum-revenge crime thriller that gets the Ritchie punch-up with hard-hitting violence and a timeline-shifting narrative, even while trying to be about something. Inscribing the action auteur’s tricky, stylish stamp onto an ultimately standard lone-wolf-exacts-revenge yarn, “Wrath of Man” rewards audiences who go into it blind. It’s a brash, slick nasty-fun case of business.

Jason Statham, who’s worked with Ritchie from the beginning, plays Patrick Hill, a new driver on the job at Los Angeles’ armored truck security company Fortico. He looks like a cop, and the job seems like a step down for him, even as he just barely passes his training. His new partner, Bullet (Holt McCallany), calls him “H”—you know, “like the bomb or Jesus H”—and shows him the ropes back and forth from the depot in transporting (and protecting) the cash. When H does his first real run, they get involved in a stick-up to which H ends by shooting down all of the gunmen with capable precision. H becomes hailed as a hero, but some of his crew members suspect he’s a cop. Or, maybe “a dark spirit.” Once there's another attempted robbery, all H has to do is show his face to the robbers, and they back off and go. Whoever H turns out to be, he won’t rest until he gets to face a group of ex-military men who are plotting the biggest heist on Black Friday. 

The very opening of “Wrath of Man” proves to be an oxymoron, showcasing Guy Ritchie, the director, at his most understated and Guy Ritchie, the writer, at his most indulgent. The camera sits back with two chatty drivers of an armored truck, capturing what they see through the windshield. When the men come to a construction stop, it turns out to be a front for a robbery. The static staging of the thieves opening a hole in the cash truck and gassing the drivers is impactful and visceral without any frenetic editing or sped-up gimmickry. At the same time, Ritchie overindulges in fast-talking dialogue that, unlike any long-winded but interesting conversation penned by Quentin Tarantino, feels unnatural and too overwritten for its own good. 

The self-conscious bravado of the dialogue continues for about the next 20 minutes. As Bullet introduces H to the entire cash-truck crew, the fratty locker-room talk and alpha posturing get laid on with such a trowel it's a surprise none of them drop their pants and pull out a measuring stick. Even with one woman holding her own, there is a lot of testosterone in the air. In one exchange, when Boy Sweat Dave (Josh Hartnett) is shooting pool with Dana (Niamh Algar), he tells her, “the point of a woman is to shut the fuck up.” We get it, this is a man's world! It reaches the point of being a Guy Ritchie parody or something closer to a David Ayer movie, but the film thereon improves considerably. As usual, Ritchie’s form of storytelling is cleverly circular, shifting in chronology (“3 months after,” “5 months earlier,” etc.) to fill in the blanks and shifting from one set of characters to another before gradually showing its cards. The way the story is structured could seem needlessly convoluted, and it definitely is, but Ritchie is so sure-handed in how he wants to tell it.

Jason Statham could stand to be tested in a romantic comedy sometime soon, but for now, he is fully reliable and believable in badass mode as H. Though purposefully kept as a stone-cold cipher, H is clearly someone embroiled in the crime world with a particular set of skills, especially when fueled by vengeance, and someone to be feared. Keeping a straight face but clearly having a ball, Statham knows how to volley back a smart-ass retort as fast as he can give a punch. Ritchie also assembles a fantastic ensemble—Jeffrey Donovan, Andy Garcia, Raúl Castillo, Eddie Marsan, Darrell D’Silva, Babs Olusanmokun—some of whom he’s not afraid to make expendable when we least expect, and they all adapt to Ritchie’s colorful writing with aplomb. In an against-type turn, Scott Eastwood brings a dangerous unpredictability as main creep Jan—and yet his handsome face still can’t be ruined with a facial scar—and musical artist Post Malone is on-screen long enough as a generic robber to tell H to suck something and then get a bullet between the eyes.

Despite an unpromising start, “Wrath of Man” compels, entertains, and moves like a bullet. The pace remains propulsive, Christopher Benstead’s doom-laden score keeps the dread building, and Ritchie’s tautly crafted script (co-written with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies) just keeps peeling back the onion. The bullet-ridden climax, set at the Fortico depot, is fraught with tension, making it clear that all bets are off and anything can happen to any of these characters. It might have slight delusions of grandeur, with title cards like “Scorched Earth” and “Bad Animals, Bad,” but Ritchie brings enough of his usual verve, energy, and guy's guy swagger to the proceedings that any earlier faults drop by the wayside. This Guy knows just how to satisfy. 

Grade: B

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is distributing “Wrath of Man” (118 min.) in theaters on May 7, 2021.