Guy Ritchie is after Quentin Tarantino and The Coen Brothers one of my favorite directors. With sublime movies like Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and The Gentlemen, he's one of those directors you follow and are curious and excited about when a new movie comes out. But not all his movies are of the same quality. Like Sherlock Holmes for example (which I found mediocre) Wrath of Man is just passable. It's all well directed but the quality is just not there. And it's a movie with Jason Statham, so it speaks for itself what you will get. Statham never laughs, Statham can't be beaten, Statham wants revenge, in short Statham plays the same character every time. A bit like Liam Neeson. I don't say those are bad actors, certainly not, but it's just always the same. Wrath of Man is full of mindless action, a lot of dead people, a lot of questionable scenes (like the heist for example that looked like doomed to fail). I watched the movie trying not to yawn, I was hoping to get those great dialogues Guy Ritchie is known for, but that just never happened. Wrath of Man is just okay to watch once, but that's it, certainly not at the same level as the other movies from Guy Ritchie.

I liked this one quite a bit despite the obvious flaws. It turns out to be a remake of a French thriller and I can say, hand on heart, that it's Guy Ritchie's best movie since SNATCH. Jason Statham is at his taciturn best as a stone-faced hero who takes a job at a security firm driving armoured vehicles full of cash. Shades of MONEY MOVERS here, the Aussie classic of the 1970s, and very nearly as good, although the middle section gets bogged down with too many layered flashbacks which reduce the momentum. The good news is that it picks up for a fantastic extended action climax which is the best I've seen from Hollywood in a while.

In L. A., an armored truck is robbed and the two drivers are killed. Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) barely passes the tests to be the new hire at the company. When his truck gets hit, he turns into the Terminator.

This is a Guy Ritchie film. It's a mid-level action thriller. It mostly works although it insists on following the story from all sides which leaves the film at almost two hours. By grouping the different sides separately, they do feel a bit split especially the story of the robbers. I do wonder if the search for the inside man would be a more compelling path. Ritchie is trying for a tighter thriller than his usual. It's him slimmed down. He uses his action skills but this is not going to be considered one of his best or most inventive.