Nobody watches Jason Statham movies for their complexity. (And nobody responded to that statement with “What about ‘Revolver?’”, which proves my point.) It’s not a bad thing. It’s the beauty of Cinema Statham. His films are old-fashioned, satisfying, guileless uppercuts. Take one Jason Statham, toss in some bad guys, give him something to fight for and get out of the damn way. Statham’s movies aren’t always amazing, but they’re usually efficient little barnburners, you gotta give him that.
His latest, “Mutiny,” directed by Jean-François Richet (“Plane”), is a simple film about Jason Statham kicking ass on a boat. Or at least, it should be. “Mutiny,” which doesn’t technically have a mutiny in it, takes the scenic route to its high seas hijinks, by way of a different Statham movie which takes place in bored rooms — sorry, I mean “boardrooms.” It’s as like something went awry in the development phase and the first act of another, unrelated, bland action movie accidentally got collated wrong. I guess nobody noticed because Statham’s movies bleed together anyway.
Granted, that’s not complexity, but it sure as heck isn’t efficient and “Mutiny” suffers for it. Richet’s film spends so much time introducing a world of corporate espionage and melodramatic betrayal that it doesn’t even make sense when Statham gets on a boat. I repeat, the boat is the least convincing part of “Jason Statham on a Boat.”
Statham plays a bodyguard named [spins the wheel of steely one-syllable names] Cole Reed, who works for a shipping magnate, Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram). Tibu treats Cole like a son, he respects him more than his actual son. On the night Tibu’s scheduled to sell his company, he is assassinated in the middle of the street, and Cole immediately kills all the bad guys. Then he finds out one of the rando mercenary killers worked on a boat, so Cole gets on the boat, because he assumes the captain of the boat must be the mastermind behind the murder.
It never occurs to Cole that this guy probably doesn’t kill shipping magnates full-time, and might simply have another gig. Instead, Cole assumes this extremely circumstantial, anecdotal evidence means he needs to immediately get on a shipping freighter and investigate. Which makes you wonder: If he was wrong, what was the plan? To putter around the boat for a few months while the real conspirators get away? Or was he going to leap over the side and swim halfway back across the Pacific if his gut instinct was wrong?
Oh, who am I kidding? Jason Statham is never wrong, except for the time he thought “Face/Off” was a documentary. It turns out the captain of this freighter, Marko Madsen (Roland Møller), has been operating a human trafficking ring under the company’s nose. And on a related note, see? Even evil-doers have side hustles these days. The economy really is that bad.
Annabelle Wallis co-stars as Angie Ellis, a sailor randomly assigned to Madsen’s boat at the last minute who uncovers the conspiracy on her own. As soon as she teams up with Cole she takes a bit of a backseat, which is disappointing because the story of “Mutiny” would probably have been more interesting — and more efficient — if Cole wasn’t in it. The crime would’ve been exposed anyway, by a hero who didn’t need half an hour of unrelated set up just to get on a boat in the first place, and who isn’t an unstoppable, emotionally unavailable killing machine. Wouldn’t that be a novelty?
That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with movies about unstoppable, emotionally unavailable killing machines. (Well, except for the obvious.) They represent a significant percentage of all action movies, good and bad. And also slasher movies, but I digress. The point is, if you present the audience with a more interesting direction, and then you don’t go there, you can’t blame us for wishing you’d taken the road less traveled. Especially when that road wouldn’t have thirty extra minutes of padding.
Once Statham gets to the boat “Mutiny” picks up. From then on it’s a simple, effective thriller with satisfactory action and an almost refreshingly mundane climax. Many action movies move heaven and earth to juice up the stakes and build to a comically oversized explosion at the last minute. “Mutiny” chugs along at a more natural pace, with Statham and Wallis whittling down the crew until there’s no one left and then going “aw, raspberries” when more bad guys show up when they thought they were done. No helicopter chase, no nuclear launch codes, just good guys and bad guys duking it out for our amusement.
“Mutiny’s” wonky structure is its biggest problem. The hero’s thin motivation for getting on a boat, which is important if you’re doing “Die Hard on a Boat,” is the second biggest. A subpar villain comes in third, but it’s a close third. Roland Møller’s character is too undeveloped to make any impression. He doesn’t get to have fun. He doesn’t get to reveal anything about his life or personality. He doesn’t even prove he’d be Statham’s equal in the action department. By the time the hero and villain are finally — finally — fighting to the death it’s hard to get worked up about it.
I suppose it may be hard, or inconsequential, to tell the difference between a good Jason Statham movie and a bad Jason Statham movie. Let’s face it, if the filmmakers hit either extreme they’ll also hit pay dirt. A good movie makes an impression and a bad movie makes an impression, but a mediocre movie is forgotten. “Mutiny” is mediocre in an interesting way. If only that was the same as being interesting. Or exciting. Or even ridiculous.
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