Over the last few years, Jason Statham has carved out a niche for himself, even more than he already had. With movies like The Beekeeper and A Working Man, he’s shown us that from now on, you’ll always know exactly what you’re getting when you walk into a movie with the name ‘Jason Statham’ at top billing: a regular guy who becomes a white knight, uncovering a secret worldwide operation after finding vengeance for a small, personal matter.
These movies, even with their cliché, copy-and-paste stories, are simply just a lot of fun. You know The Beekeeper isn’t good, but you’re still going to walk out of that cinema with a smile on your face after watching Jason Statham do some cool things — it’s the same draw that The Meg has on audiences. Mutiny somehow fails this simple task, and manages to make a Jason Statham action movie one of the most boring films of the year.
While Mutiny, on its surface, is essentially the exact same formula as Statham’s recent work, why does this one not have the same fun factor? The rule of cool still applies and we still see Jason Statham kill plenty of people, but something feels off. I believe this is all down to one thing: progression.
The Beekeeper starts with Statham’s elderly neighbour falling for a phishing scam and him finding vengeance, and ends with him finding a vast conspiracy that leads all the way to the top of the political ladder, his mission changing to track down and put a stop to it. A Working Man is similar in that it starts with a simple kidnapping and ends with, once again, a worldwide conspiracy of mobsters and corrupt figures. Mutiny, however, starts with the death of his boss and, while it does lay the building blocks for a progression into uncovering a multinational human trafficking ring, forgets about any objectives and turns into a mindless killing spree, forgetting anything that got us here.
Mutiny shows us this trafficking ring, then forgets it by the time the third act comes around. Yes, Statham is fighting this crew because he found out about it, but it doesn’t keep the heart of the story within taking down this conspiracy, simply turning into fodder. This movie just becomes boring immediately because nothing new really happens. Death ends up meaningless and none of the developments made to the story mean anything past the scene they’re introduced in. Nothing really changes from start to finish, whether that’s Statham’s character or the story itself, so I just don’t care.
There are many more general critiques of this movie, mostly coming down to this lacking any kind of identity. This stands on the backs of The Beekeeper and A Working Man, yet feels soulless in every facet. I can’t even say it feels like a reskin of those movies, because at least they had some kind of soul and style, even if it is very limited.
You may think I’m exaggerating slightly, but I actually can’t think of a single shot or line of dialogue which was interesting in any way. There’s not one line that leaves anything up to interpretation, no shot that implies something without outright telling us, absolutely nothing feels clever or interesting to think about. It becomes extremely obvious, almost immediately, that this was written to be as easily digestible to the audiences for Statham’s recent movies without putting in any of the work to actually understand what made them enjoyable in the first place. Mutiny feels like a movie that you’d see on Netflix’s home page one day, looking painfully obvious to be made with the sole intention of being background noise.
Though this is much worse than Statham’s two other recent works, this may also be received worse due to simple timing. If this was released before A Working Man, I’m sure I’d be much more lenient, however this concept will inevitably get diminishing returns for however long they decide to make these movies, both critically and financially. I believe Jason Statham is truly a great action star, he just has a terrible agent and can’t get out of this role he’s now pigeon holed himself into. However, I’m sure when this ends up bombing at the box office, Punch Palace Productions will re-evaluate their direction.
Mutiny is simply a nothing movie. I felt nothing watching and came out with nothing good to say aside from the simple fact that a few of the fight scenes were well choreographed. Action movies can be so much better than just good fights with a shoestring plot to take us to the next one, but this formula won’t get us there. You can’t make and market a movie based solely on Jason Statham being the main actor — you could twenty years ago but now we’ve moved on, audiences want more, even from their action flicks. I’m sure this will do great as background noise on Netflix, but don’t watch this in theatres, you’ll just be wasting your time.