{"id":48666,"date":"2021-05-10T08:53:25","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T12:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=48666"},"modified":"2021-05-10T08:53:33","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T12:53:33","slug":"wrath-of-man-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/05\/wrath-of-man-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrath of Man Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The chronology of \u201cWrath of Man\u201d is all out of whack and it\u2019s hard to know what is and isn\u2019t a spoiler. What we know from the trailers is that H (Jason Statham) gets a job at an armored car company where three months earlier two employees and a civilian were killed in a robbery. H is eventually confronted with robbers and dispatches with them with ease beyond his job description. But he\u2019s never happy with the results of his heroics. He\u2019s got a goal in mind that has nothing to do with protecting other people\u2019s money, or even his brothers in arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

            Following an intense pre-H robbery sequence in the opening, the film is divided into four quarters, complete with Tarantino-esque title cards. The first quarter is what we know, H is hired by the well-meaning but clueless Terry (Eddie Marsan) and trains under high-ranking employee Bullet (Holt McCallany). He\u2019s introduced to various faces around the team, including the standoffish Boy Sweat Dave (Josh Hartnett) and maneater Dana (Niamh Algar). He soon gets a reputation for violent, teammate-saving antics that endear him to some, but earn distrust from others. H is secretly conducting some sort of investigation, and signs are pointing toward Boy Sweat Dave, but I didn\u2019t buy for a second that the high-strung shlub had it in him to be a major bad guy in this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The second quarter goes backwards in time and confirms what we suspect: H is related to the civilian killed in the robbery, his son. He got the job with the armored car company in hopes that the same robbers would hit them again, this time with him ready for them. What the trailers didn\u2019t let us know was exactly who H is. Seeing as he\u2019s played by Statham, it\u2019s no wonder he\u2019s someone dangerous, but I was taken off guard by the degree. Prior to the undercover angle, H is given a list by an FBI contact (Andy Garcia) of criminal operations that might be responsible. He plows through them coldly, never appreciating that he\u2019s doing some good with his life for a change. He\u2019s just frustrated that he\u2019s having no luck finding his son\u2019s killer, hence the need for the new approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In the third quarter, we meet the gang responsible for the opening robbery, and it\u2019s not anyone on the FBI\u2019s radar. Jackson (Jeffrey Donovan) and his friends are a group of bored ex-soldiers tired of waiting for their fortunes to change. They hit the truck expecting to make a clean getaway, but lackey Jan (Scott Eastwood) panics and commits the murders. Despite that hiccup, the robbery was a success, so everyone including Jan is invited to partake in the next robbery of the armored car depot itself. There\u2019s just the little matter of H\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The final quarter of the film is the climactic robbery and inevitable showdown, but it\u2019s too late. The second and third quarters mucked around with the timeline, motivations, and loyalties so much that I was confused and disinterested when I was supposed to be invested and excited. Gone is the promise of the first quarter, where director Guy Ritchie was bringing out the dry-cool best of frequent star Statham. I was looking forward to seeing this character H really be tested, but somewhere along the way, I just wanted the movie to be over. I knew he was more than just a super-competent adrenaline junkie, but did his backstory have to be so convoluted? And do the bad guys have to be so dumb at such a pivotal moment? And does the final sequence have to be so drawn-out? Isn\u2019t efficiency supposed to be a major part of an operation like this? Whatever, the point is that I wasn\u2019t enjoying myself by the end, as the movie had used up ability to pull off a surprise in the second quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWrath of Man\u201d is rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language, and some sexual references. Its running time is 118 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             The chronology of \u201cWrath of Man\u201d is all out of whack and it\u2019s hard to know what is and isn\u2019t a spoiler. What we know from… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}