Jason Statham is a remarkably reliable and consistent action star, but he has to do more than just show up for a movie to be successful. Filmmakers need to know how to utilize Statham to his greatest potential, or at least how to get out of his way to let him do what he does best. I may not have loved Statham’s previous 2026 action movie, “Shelter,” but director Ric Roman Waugh understood exactly how to work with Statham, providing him with the right mix of action set pieces and moments of downtime.
- Rating: 2.5/5 Stars
- Verdict: Jason Statham remains one of cinema’s most dependable action heroes, but “Mutiny” is far from his best work. The thriller about a fugitive bodyguard stowing away on a cargo ship to take down human traffickers is slowly paced and full of dull exposition, with occasional bursts of intense action.
- Where to watch: Opens in theaters Aug. 21
I can’t say the same for “Mutiny” director Jean-François Richet, who holds Statham back for far too much of the movie’s brief running time. The sporadic action sequences are solid but unremarkable, and they aren’t quite enough to make up for the stretches of dull exposition in between. Richet also directed 2023’s Gerard Butler hit “Plane,” and “Mutiny” is similarly generic and poorly paced, without the benefit of the buddy dynamic between Butler and Mike Colter in “Plane.”
Statham fans may find a few bright spots, but everyone else can just rewatch his many superior action movies at home.
‘Mutiny’ rushes through its basic thriller plot
Statham doesn’t need a lot of complicated back story for his man-of-action characters, but “Mutiny” is notably awkward in its attempts to establish the personal relationships of Statham’s Cole Reed before he’s thrust into peril. After an opening flash-forward featuring a sudden car crash, “Mutiny” steps back to introduce Cole as the bodyguard for a Thai shipping mogul (Ramon Tikaram) who’s about to sell the company he’s owned for decades.
Statham can bring emotional weight to certain roles, but there’s no pathos to the quick glimpses of Cole mourning his late father while scrolling through old photos on a tablet. Likewise, the brotherly affection between Cole and his boss feels forced, and it’s not long before the rich industrialist is murdered, with Cole framed as the culprit. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t waste any time in putting Cole on track to clear his name, and the bulk of the story takes place on one of the company’s cargo vessels, where Cole believes he can locate the real killer.
That involves uncovering a human trafficking operation and teaming up with American Navy veteran Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis), the only crew member aboard the ship who isn’t part of the conspiracy. The details, which encompass a shady corporate rival and Cole’s boss’ adult failson, are sketchy and unimportant, but that doesn’t stop Richet and screenwriters Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis from staging numerous scenes of characters delivering exposition to each other when they should be trading blows instead.
The action in ‘Mutiny’ is brief but intense
After the shootout that takes his boss’ life, Cole has to bide his time for a while before taking on more bad guys, and there are long stretches of “Mutiny” in which Cole and Angie are just skulking around the ship, trying to evade their attackers. When the action arrives, it can be brutal and exciting, especially in Cole’s ingenious use of a padlock in one early fight scene, but it’s often over within a few minutes. As in “Plane,” Richet seems reluctant to stage wall-to-wall action, but he doesn’t have anything interesting to fill the rest of the time.
Statham and Wallis have minimal chemistry, although she acquits herself decently enough when Angie has to engage in some combat of her own. The human trafficking plot is perfunctory and underwhelming, in what has become a modern action-movie cliché. Recent martial-arts sensation “The Furious” used essentially the same plot device, and while it wasn’t any more interesting in that movie, at least the filmmakers offered far more dynamic and frequent fight scenes to distract from the uninspired storytelling.
“Mutiny” also frequently cuts away to an American Navy vessel that has received Angie’s distress signal, with Adrian Lester struggling to find anything compelling in his role as a Navy commander who stands around and explains the plot and character motivations. The prospect of the Navy invading the cargo ship never amounts to anything, and their function is essentially irrelevant.
As the ship’s captain and the coordinator of the human trafficking operation, Roland Møller snarls and snaps at his underlings, but he’s no match for Statham.
Verdict: ‘Mutiny’ is lower-tier Statham
Statham is so steely and determined that it’s pretty much impossible for him to give a bad performance within his specifically defined range, and his presence makes “Mutiny” watchable. That’s the best I can say for an entirely disposable movie that will join the likes of “Wild Card” or “Parker” among Statham action films that people struggle to remember.
The good news is that viewers only have a few months to wait before a newer, hopefully better Statham action vehicle comes along with “The Beekeeper 2.”
“Mutiny” opens Aug. 21 in theaters
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