{"id":9900,"date":"2024-12-10T23:46:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9900"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:46:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:46:00","slug":"wrath-of-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/wrath-of-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrath of Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wrath of Man<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 UA\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 119 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Ritchie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chris Benstead\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alan Stewart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 7, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Rocci Williams, Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Andy Garcia, Deobia Oparei, Laz Alonso, Raul Castillo, Chris Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar, Tadhg Murphy, Alessandro Babalola, Mark Arnold, Gerald Tyler, Alex Ferns, Josh Cowdery, Jason Wong, Rob Delaney, Eli Brown, Kerry Shale, Cameron Jack, Darrell D\u2019Silva, Babs Olusanmokun, Thomas Dominique, Lyne Renee, Rebecca Calder.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $27.5M (US)\/$104M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Guy Ritchie is back with a vengeance! After nearly a decade of lame mainstream movies like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Aladdin, he returned to his roots with the highly entertaining crime comedy The Gentlemen. It was a welcome return to form for the British filmmaker best known for shaggy-dog gangster tales like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and Revolver.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For his latest outing Wrath of Man<\/strong>, the shaggy dog is in the kennel. This super-dark, super-violent crime drama is all business and no play. It stars Jason Statham (The Transporter 1-3) at his meanest as \u201cH\u201d, the newest employee at Fortico Security, an armored truck company still reeling from an armed robbery that claimed the lives of two guards and one innocent bystander. Initially, he doesn\u2019t exactly distinguish or endear himself to anybody. He barely passes the shooting and driving tests. He\u2019s surly and antisocial. A couple of his new co-workers would love to knock his block off. HOWEVER, it would be a huge mistake to even try.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A routine cash pick-up turns out to be a set-up. His supervisor Bullet (McCallany, Sully) is taken hostage by masked men demanding the $2M in the truck. His young hotshot partner \u201cBoy Sweat\u201d Dave (Hartnett, Black Hawk Down), looking like he\u2019s ready to piss his pants, tells H to comply. H has other plans. He coldly, single-handedly takes down the entire crew with shocking ease. He\u2019s hailed as a hero by most of his co-workers. It\u2019s also concrete proof he\u2019s more than he claims to be. Is he a hero or is it something else?<\/p>\n

\u00a0SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong> I\u2019m issuing an alert as a matter of courtesy to those who haven\u2019t seen the trailer for Wrath of Man<\/strong> which gives away too much as far as I\u2019m concerned. Since the producers saw fit to reveal certain plot points, I won\u2019t feel guilty about discussing them. If you want to go in cold, you best stop reading now. This is your final warning. Okay, here we go. H is a man on a personal mission. The innocent bystander killed in the earlier robbery was his son. The thieves erred in not making sure H was dead after putting several bullets in him. He is somebody that you don\u2019t screw with. He\u2019s the boss of a major British crime syndicate. Now he\u2019s angry and out for blood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In many cases, non-linear narrative is a self-conscious device used to distract audiences from tired, derivative plotlines. This mainly applies to the countless Pulp Fiction wannabes made by Tarantino imitators. There were far too many of those in the 90s, don\u2019t you think? Guy Ritchie is an exception. He\u2019s an exceptional filmmaker. The way he structures Wrath of Man<\/strong> is nothing short of brilliant. He jumps around in time a lot. He divides his film into chapters, each one heralded by on-screen titles like \u201cA Dark Spirit\u201d and \u201cBad Animals, Bad\u201d. Each one widens the movie\u2019s scope as it reveals more crucial information like the involvement of a group of Afghan vets led by their former CO (Donovan, Sicario). We\u2019re introduced to characters like the federal agent (Garcia, The Untouchables) who sits back and allows H to go on his rampage through L.A.\u2019s criminal underbelly to find his son\u2019s killers. To some, it will feel like the plot is all over the place. Believe me when I say it all comes together tightly and violently in the final act, a major heist involving $160M in Black Friday money.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Statham is AWESOME as H. He plays a criminal so cold and hardened, he could easily be mistaken for the Devil himself. After all, hell follows with him wherever he goes. This is a guy whose ringtone is Wagner\u2019s \u201cRide of the Valkyries\u201d. He\u2019s not just driven by revenge; he\u2019s also driven by a sense of duty. He has to do what he sets out to do. It\u2019s the code he lives by. H is a scary bloke indeed. It\u2019s great to see Statham in a balls-out crime drama like Wrath of Man<\/strong> after the silliness of the Fast & Furious films, especially that goofy spin-off with Dwayne Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s also good to see Josh Hartnett again. Although he never stopped acting, he hasn\u2019t done much of note since 2007\u2019s 30 Days of Night. He\u2019s good as the suspicious co-worker who may or may not be an inside man. I\u2019d also like to call attention to Scott Eastwood (yes, Clint\u2019s son) who plays one of the vets, a cocky, psycho frat boy who oozes entitlement and vileness. He\u2019s a malignant tumor personified. What a great slimy bad guy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ritchie pulls no punches with Wrath of Man<\/strong>. He tells a tough, lean and mean crime story with no real heroes. On a good day, H is an anti-hero much like the vengeful drifters played by Clint Eastwood in westerns (e.g. High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider). It\u2019s violent and has a high body count. The robbery sequences are superbly executed. The whole film is superbly crafted. It runs just shy of two hours, but doesn\u2019t feel like it. There is no wasted time or superfluous material. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s one of Ritchie\u2019s best. I only hope he continues to make movies like this.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wrath of Man (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 UA\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 119 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Ritchie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chris Benstead\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alan Stewart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 7, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Rocci Williams, Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Andy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Wrath-of-Man-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10233,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9900\/revisions\/10233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}