‘Mutiny’ Review: A No-Frills Jason Statham Actioner
A scholar of the Cannon Group, French genre auteur Jean-François Richet is no stranger to big, goofy actioners. His last movie, Plane, was mocked for its title but lauded as an effective and downright nasty vehicle that would’ve made a killing if it had been released in the 1980s and starred Chuck Norris instead of Gerard Butler. Richet has now reached a certain apotheosis by collaborating with Jason Statham on Mutiny, going from the air to the sea in a basic but admittedly enjoyable time.
The plot of Mutiny
Mutiny begins with a relatively poor set-up to justify the reason Statham’s Cole Reed is on a cargo ship. Once there, it turns what seems to be a bog-standard revenge story into a human trafficking drama with conservative politics as reactionary as David Ayer’s A Working Man. Unlike that movie, however, Richet is such a proficient action director that he makes the most of the claustrophobic settings aboard a naval vessel and seems to have fun with Statham’s particular style of baddie dispatch.
Essentially, Reed discovers a crate full of refugees who will be trafficked once the cargo boat reaches sea. Third mate Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis), assigned on board after the assassination of the company’s CEO, also makes the same discovery and soon realizes that the ship’s captain (Roland Møller) is also in on it, alongside the rest of the crew.
Reed must join forces with Ellis to take down everyone working for a mysterious criminal (Simon Kluth). We don’t know much about him other than that he is evil and wants the protagonist dead for knowing the truth about the CEO’s death.
This action film is not sophisticated, but fun enough
Look, you’re not going to get a very sophisticated story in Mutiny. In fact, the plot is there only to move the action forward. There’s no desire to explore its human trafficking angle or say anything about the crisis at hand, nor is there any part where the villains become more than simple one-note mustache-twirling attributes. Their motivations don’t make much sense because Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis’ screenplay is so paperthin and doesn’t draw three-dimensional characters at all.
Jason Statham is playing the same character you’ve seen from him a thousand times before, with little added depth. Wallis also doesn’t have much to do beyond an underdeveloped “sidekick” who, admittedly, kicks ass, but definitely not enough for the action to feel genuinely original and impassioned.
Again, though, who am I kidding? Did I honestly expect to see thoughtful, Oscar-worthy performances in this? To be fair, most critics will compare Mutiny to Andrew Davis’ Under Siege, which is arguably the best “Die Hard on a boat” movie ever made. But Statham is arguably a better actor than Steven Seagal, whose line deliveries are on par with a plank of wood.
Wallis is also incredibly skilled, and she does infuse a bit of humanity into her portrayal of a relatively underwhelming character. It livens up the stakes when the movie desperately needs it.
Thank God that Richet knows how to craft sturdy, tactile action that takes full advantage of the cloistered settings of a ship. There are so many great one-on-one fights (plenty of those with large fish hooks) and shootouts that it’s almost an embarrassment of riches at how well the action flows and how cathartic it is.
The movie is undoubtedly a spiritual successor to all the Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, and Charles Bronson productions that Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus gave us. Especially as right-wing fever dreams of any form of panic that gripped the United States at the time. All that’s missing is a Jimmy Page soundtrack, and we’re in business.
Final thoughts on Mutiny
Richet is a far more sophisticated filmmaker than Westerners have given him credit for. He’ll sadly be remembered as nothing more than a journeyman for mid-budget action movies. But the craft that’s found in his Mesrine diptych, The Emperor of Paris, or even in his remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 is undeniable. He’s the reason the film’s craft is elevated and why it remains watchable despite how lazy and pedestrian its screenplay might be.
That said, he seems to be leaving this realm of filmmaking to reunite with his frequent collaborator Vincent Cassel on a re-adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Netflix. Maybe that will awaken the public to the fact that his movies are worth watching, even if Mutiny acts like a minor work compared to the rest of his filmography.
Also check out: Jason Statham Kicks Ass in Shelter
