You’re gonna ask me, “What distinguishes this piece of crap from any other Jason Statham piece of crap?” And my honest answer is, “This one takes place on a boat.”
Part of the problem is that Jason Statham always has to look like a professional badass. This illusion falls apart if we see the man as anything less than a type-A master of fury. And, yet, we need to see the fury every film, which raises the biggest problem in any Jason Statham movie: if he’s so thorough and professional, how did we get to the part where the bad guys are ahead? Hence, we often find him in situation where he’s a benevolent mercenary or a recluse, i.e. somebody who can reasonably solve a mess he didn’t necessarily create.
Today, it’s a t least a little on him. Cole Reed (Statham) is a bodyguard for a shipping magnate. One night, after exchanging forbidden love (or my interpretation of such), these two are ambushed. Cole survives and kills all the bad guys, but his boss dies. Cole is, of course, framed here for murder despite a glorious body count of bad guys.
Hey, we gotta get him on the boat somehow, y’know?
As this film takes place in a land without detective work of any kind, Cole discovers by himself the bad guys are on a ship owned by his boss, and he now has to pose as a crew guy to infiltrate this evil. There’s a woman involved (Annabelle Wallis). She has been summoned to replace one of the guys Cole killed while Cole assumes the identify of the same guy. You boat guys suck at paperwork. Suffice to say, Cole and Angie (Wallis) are the only decent people on the ship, well, except for the crateful of humans being trafficked, of course.
Yeah, it’s another one of these films. Gee, remember when human trafficking was all the rage? And RW assholes got up and made speeches about protecting human life and railed against a Democratic “pro-trafficking” enemy that didn’t exist? Then remember how Trump was all over the Epstein
files and probably guilty of sex trafficking among any number of other crimes? And remember how suddenly this issue completely disappeared? Well, the guys who made this film never got the memo. So there’s all sorts of evil going on this boat, and Cole’s gotta bring it to justice.
Mutiny isn’t a bad film, but also isn’t a good film. And it reeks of “seen it.” Let me get this straight: Decent and noble survivor Jason Statham is reluctantly enrolled in a noble cause which carries out nobly with a most noble body count. I don’t think there’s anything new here; it just takes place on a boat, which actually makes me feel kinda bad for the bodies. I’m sure they’re evil henchmen in need of killin’ and all … but they were in part selected for their skill as seamen, not warriors. Killing them feels a little like unleashing a wolf in a hen house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, “Cole gets shot.” Wake me when he dies.
There once was a bodyguard named Cole
Framed for murder, an identity he stole
Stowaway on board
Now it’s vengeance, oh Lord
No amount of corpses will make you whole
Rated R, 95 Minutes
Director: Jean-François Richet
Writer: Lindsay Michel, J.P. Davis
Genre: Jason at Sea
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Statham fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Everybody else
