You know the old celebrity adage, “I don’t wake up for less than a million dollars,”? Well Jason Statham doesn’t wake up and still pockets the loot, sleepwalking through yet another gritty hardman caper, this time from director Ric Roman Waugh (no relation). Things get a little more serious this time with Statham introduced as angular ex-special forces super weapon, Michael Mason, living in exile with his nameless mutt in a tastfully disused lighthouse on the Outer Hebrides. He gets by with that hardman loner perennial, a chess set, as well as regular deliveries of porridge and vodka via boat from an old army pal and his niece/guardian, Jess (Bodhi Rae Breathnach).
When a mega storm capsizes the boat and kills his pal, the Rambo-ish Mason now has another mouth to feed, and an injured one at that, with the inquisitive Jess. And so he ventures via boat into the local town for medical supplies and is instantly caught and identified via MI6’s new, ultra-invasive security programme called THEA.
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The way that Mason’s little idyl falls apart is shoddily written, to the point where you almost feel like he wants to be caught. On the other side of the curtain are Bill Nighy’s nefarious spymaster, Manafort, a conventional bureaucrat baddie role that’s beneath the wit and suave of this national treasure. The great Naomi Ackie, too, turns up as his more morally righteous underling, but is given very little to do.
The film then comprises a standard issue race across the country with various violent stand-offs, a murderous assassin and a couple of elbow fighting interludes. Statham’s impressive physicality does little to add much juice to a film that expends much of its energy cleaving tightly to tired formula, with a script that is almost wall-to-wall cliché. Beyond that, it’s a story that lives or dies on how much you buy into the relationship between Mason and Jess and… there’s just no chemistry there, or no real explanation as to why she views him as a father figure.
If you’re being generous, you might chalk this up as being increments above some of Statham’s more overtly schlocky outings, but if anything, it offers up less of what you want if you’re going to see a Jason Statham movie. He should’ve stayed in bed.
