Wrath of Man opens with an aerial view of an industrial area. It could be any city or any country (a marked break from the typical Guy Ritchie setting, which is always very culturally specific), giving viewers the sense that the location doesn’t matter much at all. In his third film in as many years, following his mercenary work directing Disney’s Aladdin and last year’s impressive return to British gangster comedy The Gentlemen, Ritchie is once again trying something different. This time, Jason Statham, the breakout star of Ritchie’s debut, 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, is back in the lead.
In that film, Ritchie cast Statham, who had never acted before, on the strength of his background as a street seller. Statham recalled in 2015:
“Guy came at me ‘cause he was interested in what I used to do on the f***ing street. He’d written a character that was the same as me. And he said, ‘I love it. Give me some of the patter.’ At the time, I had loads of it. Loads of it. And he was fascinated with that, and he just wanted someone who was authentic. He said, ‘I’m gonna get someone from f***ing drama school to do this? How can they learn what you’ve learned?’ It’s such an esoteric f***ing subject, no one knows about it unless you’re in it. You can’t read it in textbooks.”
The bet paid off for both of them. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is widely considered a classic of both the crime and comedy genres, and Statham, who was paid just 5,000 pounds for the role, became one of the world’s most sought-after action stars. The film also launched Ritchie’s career as a director.
Last year’s The Gentlemen felt like a Lock, Stock for a new era, the mark of Ritchie’s return to the British gangster territory of his early years — an impression reinforced by the presence of Statham, 15 years since their last collaboration. But Wrath of Man is not a British gangster comedy. In fact, though Statham plays an Englishman, the film unfolds entirely in Los Angeles, and there’s very little humor to be found. In this sense, it owes more to some of Statham’s action thrillers than to Ritchie’s pictures, but even in the former, there’s usually an undercurrent of dry humor not really found in Wrath of Man.
That might be because the script is loosely based on the 2004 French film Cash Truck by Nicolas Boukhrief; perhaps Ritchie wanted to maintain the tone of the original. But the seriousness is extremely jarring for anyone familiar with Ritchie and Statham’s earlier collaborations — or even to a newcomer drawn to the film after The Gentlemen. But what we get is very well made, even if it isn’t a typical Ritchie picture.
Wrath of Man is a tightly structured revenge thriller. Statham plays a nameless new hire at an armored truck company that recently fell victim to a brutal robbery in which the drivers and a civilian were executed. Statham’s character, referred to simply as “H,” proves incredibly adept in combat when his truck is attacked, and his talents lead to a swift climb through the company’s ranks. Statham plays the role in an understated way, and H’s lack of humor adds to his sense of anonymity, also reinforced by his wardrobe. In his first appearance, a job interview for the firm, H wears a dark Harrington jacket: one of the most neutral garments around, but one with both British and classic gangster-film heritage, having appeared on action hero Steve McQueen in the 1968 heist film The Thomas Crown Affair, in which anonymity also plays a large role.
The film has an explicitly episodic, though nonlinear, structure, and early on, H is as much a mystery to the audience as he is to his friends and foes. The slow trickle of information builds a lot of tension, which remains even as we see him expertly fight his way through action sequences. He clearly has a reason for putting himself in this position, which doesn’t seem to offer much reward, and his motivation isn’t financial.
Once the next chapter establishes the reason why H is seeking revenge, the audience’s perspective shifts to his. He is no longer the object of mystery; instead, we are following him as he attempts to solve one. From here on out, the film is a high-pressure thriller, with a clear direction but enough in the way of conflicting agendas and erratic characters to avoid predictability. The nonlinear structure and the sense of a bigger picture are Wrath of Man’s strongest links to Ritchie’s signature style.
LA’s sprawl offers a very different feeling than London’s densely packed urban chaos, but really, the film could have been set anywhere; the location is unimportant, even after we find out where it is. It’s possible that the realities of pandemic filmmaking meant that anything too dependent on street scenes or bustle would be impossible to make without obvious tells. Perhaps the filmmakers felt that the generic city better reflected the spirit of the original Cash Truck. Either way, this geographic anonymity feels like an even bigger departure from classic Ritchie than the lack of humor does.
Ritchie’s previous independent films, through their eclectic reflection of his hobbies, culture-clash humor, and colorful characters, could only have been made by him. Wrath of Man is an excellent action thriller with a strong lead performance, but it feels like it could have been made by any good director. Action fans may feel well served, but Ritchie fans will be left wanting more.
Jibran Khan is a freelance writer and researcher. From 2017 to 2019, he was the Thomas L. Rhodes fellow at the National Review Institute.
