Wrath of Man Review: Intense Action Thriller

Guy Ritchie blends tones and storytelling mechanics in Wrath of Man, resulting in an uneven but intense action thriller.

He’s initially fairly quiet and mysterious, despite the attempts of his affable colleague Bullet (Holt McCallany) to connect with him.

However, after he violently quells a hostage situation, it turns out there’s more to H’s past and motivations than meets the eye. In fact, he has history with a gang of veterans turned thieves, led by former sergeant Mike Jackson (Jeffrey Donovan). When said gang’s elaborate heist puts Fortico Security in their crosshairs, a grand collision ensues of inside plans, personal vendettas, and revelations of the past that all come to a destructive head. Oh, and Post Malone is in there somewhere. If you’re wondering exactly why… I’ve seen the movie and I myself don’t know.

Wrath of Man isn’t exactly a feel-good movie. It’s filled with countless intense moments, it establishes and maintains a harsh environment that shows little to no mercy, and it’s rather downtrodden and even bleak in tone. Chris Benstead’s very dreary, prominently featured score sounds more like something you’d hear in one of Todd Phillips’s Joker movies. The cinematography from Alan Stewart is impressive but colorless, clearly in an intentional way that matches the film’s most brutal sequences. The grand heist that takes up most of the film’s back half is brutally portrayed, without any sort of humor or levity, and the ending is deliberately cold and empty without any true sense of triumph.

This is all evident from the very start of the film… and yet, so too is a lot of what I think is intentionally funny dialogue. As in, if you read these lines on paper, you’d probably laugh and assume they were written for one of Ritchie’s more tongue-in-cheek movies. But with how seriously Wrath of Man seems to otherwise take itself, they’re rather jarring. You want to laugh at how almost cartoonishly they’re delivered, but you don’t know if you’re supposed to. Sure, some of the quips are believable as a way for people to diffuse tension… but one line is literally, “Get your asshole out of your asshole.” Yeah, it can be that kind of movie. Except when it isn’t. That’s the kind of uneven blending of tones we’re working with here.

Does that stop me from having a good time, even after multiple viewings? Surprisingly, no. I’ve yet to be bored or have any scene lose my interest when watching, largely because every character is at least highly memorable, off-putting as they may be. I know Statham’s gravelly tough-guy performances have almost become meme-worthy at this point – starring in movies like The Meg 2 and The Beekeeper will do that – but his acting is legitimately really good as the somewhat traditionally quiet killer with a deadly grudge. One or two characters successfully lower your defenses, only to catch you off-guard with their actions and reveals because of how well-defined they seemed to be earlier.

Even the villains, despite being clearly terrible people, have a clearly identifiable drive and purpose behind every move they make. You feel like you know them as well as the “heroes” even if you’re not at all rooting for them, especially since you spend just as much time with them as anyone else. Wrath of Man takes a Tarantino-esque approach to its storytelling by showing scenes multiple times from different points of view, sometimes out of order, each one revealing something new until you have the full picture. It’s a movie that clearly takes joy in revealing how everything is complexly interconnected, and it manages to give us long stretches with one specific faction without feeling jumbled.

Guy Ritchie almost never lets the camera linger on any of the “normal” people who get caught up with the shady dealings. His focus is always on the criminals or corrupt protagonists, which works both to keep us in their shoes and represent how indifferently they feel towards any other bystander. His directorial touch is what elevates a story that otherwise doesn’t have that much to chew on, giving Wrath of Man the dark sense of thrill that a crime movie should have. Even when everything doesn’t gel together tonally, it’s always intriguing to watch play out. This is a film that both falls into a lot of typical molds and breaks away from some others, including Ritchie’s.

Wrath of Man is an enigma in some ways, and I’ve yet to be surprised by anyone’s positive or negative reaction to it. If you’re just looking for good action and thrills in your movie, you’re definitely covered. If you want good characters within, you’re possibly covered. If you want a wholly cohesive experience where every story beat hits exactly how it should, that’s where things get particularly murky. As for me, I see many of its faults, but I still end up enjoying myself every time I watch or think about it. Whenever it starts to slip, it’ll introduce some new character beat or interesting sequence to salvage itself. It doesn’t come away with a king’s ransom of loot, but it makes out with a nice payday that was worth the gamble.

Wrath of Man is now available to watch on digital and on demand, and on DVD & Blu-Ray.

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