Michael's Movie Grade: B+
When you see the words "a film by Guy Ritchie," you feel you know what to except. Fast moving action, quirky humor and a general sense of cinematic playfulness. This however does not describe Wrath of Man at all. This is a dark and quite serious thriller. Yet Guy truly delivers with this movie and proves he is more versatile than you may have thought. One thing Guy has always excelled at is creating a sense of atmosphere and that is something he does very well here. From the very start you get this feeling that you have entered uncompromisingly dark world, where there is no one you can trust. This is further expanded on when we meet our "hero," H. When we first meet this character we have a feeling that we don't truly know who this is or if we can trust him. As the movie goes on, we question more and more how much we are truly supposed to like this character. While this would be deadly to many action films, it only increases our interest here. The character may not be traditionally likable but he is fascinating to watch and a character that we can not take our eyes off of. Jason Statham is the perfect actor to play this part. Like many of the best action stars, he has a persona that is inherently cool. This is important as in many of his movies he needs to carry underwritten and otherwise uninteresting characters with his inherent coolness. This film uses that persona in a way those other movies don't. This character is a mystery to us when we first meet him and along the way we learn more about him but we never get to fully know him. This coolness allows us to become intrigued with this character and wonder what is behind that calm and cool mask. This movie's sense of atmosphere is only enhanced by excellent and moody cinematography by Alan Stewart and a great musical score by Christopher Benstead. This movie also uses Guy's trademark non-liner storytelling in a truly effective and engrossing way. The action scenes while not typical Guy Ritchie action scenes are incredibly well done and keep one on the edge of their seats.
Unfortunately this movie does have a few problems when it comes to the story. One of these is a very important scene that changes the course of the rest of the movie. Unfortunately this scene revolves around a character we have not really met before hand and therefore it does not have the emotional impact that it should. Also the basic story is nothing new and we can see a lot coming in advance.
A departure for Guy Ritchie, but a darn good movie regardless. -Michael J. Ruhland
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