An Underappreciated Jason Statham Action Movie Is Finding An Audience On Streaming

Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie – they’ve collaborated several times, did you know that? Yeah! Apparently they don’t hate each other. The Transporter owes much of his early exposure to roles in Ritchie’s films, including Bacon in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the smooth-talking Turk in Snatch, and his upcoming role as an international spy in Operation Fortune: Stealth of War. But while one of Statham and Ritchie’s latest collaborations proved to be a popular pairing among moviegoers, last year’s action-thriller Wrath of Man didn’t get the love it deserved.

However, the opportunities afforded to Jason Statham by the world of streaming are changing that: The Wrath of Man is on Amazon Prime Video and is in the service’s top ten films at number 6; between the 1932 classic “The Most Dangerous Game” and Prime’s hit animated sequel “Hotel Transylvania: Transformation.” The Wrath of Man is not your average heist movie. The film is divided into four parts, with most parts beginning with a brutal heist in which several armored truck guards and bystanders are killed. Five months after the robbery, Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) applies to Fortico Security—a company

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that lost two of its security guards in the robbery—and barely meets the requirements to become a security guard. When robbers take one of Hill’s colleagues hostage, it becomes clear that Fortico’s mysterious new hire is far more capable than he lets on. In subsequent chapters, we learn that Jason Statham’s character actually joined Fortico’s security force because of the fatal attack she suffered several months ago, and the reasons for it are deeply personal. We also end up learning more about the people who committed the robbery, why they did it, and why it all went wrong and turned bloody.

The Wrath of Man arrived in theaters at a bad time in the world for films. The Jason Statham-starring thriller wrapped in May 2021 while the theater industry was still trying to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, The Wrath of Man managed to earn $104 million worldwide on a production budget of $40 million, more than a decent profit for a film in the COVID era. Luckily for everyone involved, its only competition was Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish’s drama Here Today. Despite having a die-hard fan base, Guy Ritchie has never been a critical favorite, and in that regard, The Wrath of Man didn’t break the mold.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a reviewer rating of 66%, which is dangerously close to green label territory. Critics thought the Jason Statham thriller was funny and mildly entertaining due to Ritchie’s signature style and storytelling techniques, but overall it was the proverbial silk on a pig. The audience, on the other hand, felt very differently. The Wrath of Man proved to be one of those cases where audiences moved far from reviewers, giving the film a 90% score on RT, making it one of Ritchie’s favorite films according to the aggregate site.

Regardless of what Jason Statham’s audiences in theaters or on streaming think of Wrath of Man or any other of his collaborations with the director, he’ll likely continue to work with Guy Ritchie for years to come. On the other hand, he apparently no longer wants anything to do with the franchise that made him a big name in the U.S. — The Transporter. While Statham made three films in the franchise, in 2015 he gave the thumbs down on returning to the role of Frank Martin. In a recent interview, Statham revealed that the studio had the gall to offer him less money for The Transporter 4 than the previous entries and that they wouldn’t let him review the script before signing on.