Mutiny

As you get older, the one thing you really come to appreciate is, regularity. Sure, change and spontaneity are all the rage, but at some point, you start to enjoy living a little like Phil Connors—doing the same thing every day. With movies, I love seeing new and exciting things, but I also love sitting down and knowing exactly what I’m getting myself into. And nothing screams that more these days than a Jason Statham movie. Good news for fans of “you know what you’re getting”: he’s back to charm us and kick some bad guys’ asses in Mutiny, and everything pretty much goes according to plan.

Cole Reed (Jason Statham) is a retired cop who, after saving his life at one point, now works as the head bodyguard for a wealthy businessman. The man and his son are about to sell the company, so life is looking pretty good, but not everyone wants that deal to happen. After a night of celebration, Cole and his employer are ambushed. Cole manages to kill all the attackers, but he fails at the one thing he was hired to do, as his employer dies in the attack.

Cole quickly starts putting the pieces together and assumes the identity of one of the killers to get aboard a ship, hoping it will lead him to whoever was behind the ambush. Once there, though, he discovers something even more nefarious: a shipping container filled with people. Cole promises to free them, but company is coming, and he’s going to have to use every skill he has to get them out alive. That turns out to be a lot harder than it first looks, because there is a much bigger plan in motion, and it’s going to take everything Cole has to survive it.

Written by J.P. Davis and Lindsay Michel, Mutiny sticks to a tried-and-true formula, so expect plenty of ass-kicking and peril. While I enjoy a good, juicy plot as much as the next guy, Mutiny is pretty straightforward. Director Jean-François Richet keeps the focus on Cole instead of trying to build some larger dramatic story around him. The movie is at its best when it leans into the cat-and-mouse game between Cole and the ship’s crew, with Cole using the cramped spaces of the ship to his advantage. All in all, the story is pretty much what you would expect from a Statham movie, and the results are about the same too.

Mutiny is lean when it comes to its supporting characters, but it comes on strong with the action, as Statham delivers his usual fare. He is as physically convincing as ever and delivers some entertaining, if occasionally nasty, kills that give you exactly the kind of savage action you expect from one of his movies. For most of his career, Statham has powered these mid-budget action films, and Mutiny isn’t much different. It’s rock-solid, well-cast, and knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be.

That’s also why it’s almost impossible not to have fun with this one. It has many of the same complaints and flaws that come with most Statham movies, but at this point, do we really care? I don’t. I love what he brings to these movies, and with Mutiny, you get exactly what you expect—and that’s perfect for me.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema