REVIEW: “Mutiny”
Courtesy of Lionsgate
There are bad action movies, and then there are those action movies that are so awful you wonder how the filmmakers could mess up something so simple. Mutiny belongs firmly in that second group. This is a Jason Statham movie where he fights bad guys on a cargo ship. Which should be cinematic comfort food, especially for his fans who eagerly line up for his latest release. But director Jean-François Richet somehow turns what should’ve been a fun ride into a slow, patched-together movie that feels like it’s borrowed bits from much better action movies.
In fact, there’s a good reason for this. Mutiny started as Ship, which was meant to be a direct sequel to Richet's Gerard Butler movie, Plane. When Butler left the project, it was quickly reworked into a standalone movie with Statham as the lead. Unfortunately, the finished movie bears all the signs of this rushed change. The characters’ motives, the plot, and the overall story feel like they were quickly thrown together to fit a completely different action star.
Statham plays Cole Reed, a former soldier and ex-cop now working as private security for a billionaire shipping tycoon. When the tycoon is murdered and Cole is framed, he goes on the run and sneaks onto one of his late boss's cargo ships. Of course, the ship is crawling with bad guys, including a corrupt captain, and Cole soon uncovers a bigger plot involving human trafficking. Basically: it's Die Hard on a cargo ship. Except without the suspense. Or the clever action. Or the memorable villain. Or, frankly, any of the fun.
What’s most frustrating about Mutiny is that it actually hints at a better movie early on. At first, Cole is established as extremely observant. Noticing sounds, movements, and small details that most people would miss. This makes it seem like his mind, not just his fists, would be his main weapon, which would have been a nice change for a Statham movie. He's even shown to be a skilled chess player, suggesting that he will easily outsmart the villains. But as the movie moves forward, it basically ignores all of this.
Instead, Cole quickly becomes another usual Statham action hero, taking out one nameless goon after another while the script pretends there's a real mystery going on. Statham has spent an entire career making this kind of material entertaining, but even he seems bored here. Gone is the playful charm that makes his best performances so much fun. He mostly scowls, grunts, throws punches, and waits for it all to be over. To make matters worse, the action isn’t good enough to make up for the movie’s other problems. The whole movie has a strangely flat feel to it; fights break out, people are shot, and bones are broken. But none of it generates any real excitement because the villains are forgettable and the movie never builds an ounce of tension.
Annabelle Wallis fares even worse as Angie Ellis, a third mate who gets pulled into Cole's mission. She doesn’t feel like a real character; she’s more of a walking plot device, stuck delivering clunky exposition and given nothing interesting to do. The main villains are even more one-dimensional. In good action movies, the hero is only as interesting as the bad guys trying to take him out. Mutiny clearly missed that point.
And that's the real problem here. No one buys a ticket to a Jason Statham movie expecting an Oscar-worthy masterpiece. You want a ridiculous premise, a memorable villain, some clever fight choreography, and a handful of great one-liners, and then let Statham do what he does best. Mutiny can't even manage that much. At only 95 minutes, it feels much longer. It's familiar but not comforting, violent but not exciting, and ridiculous without being any fun. Statham has made plenty of dumb popcorn action movies, but even dumb popcorn movies are still supposed to be entertaining.
Mutiny doesn't sink because it's dumb. It sinks because it's dead in the water.
Mutiny is currently available to rent on VOD.