Blitz (2011)

Okay... so my expectations weren't high going in to see Blitz. It was more an act of supporting British Crime cinema than supporting the act of British crimes of cinema and recent things I'd seen written about it were not horrible. What I'm trying to say is that I was convinced it would be mulch, I would have waited for the DVD. But even though it's 2011 and the idea of Statham, Paddy Considine, Aiden Gillen and David Morrissey all together isn't the exciting prospect, it would have been say... 5years ago- it's a strong team of British actors.
I guess the relatively good news is it's not bad enough to be offended by but it's not the British-Dirty Harry that it's trying hard to be, either. Basically, it politely meets your expectations for a drink, makes smalltalk, shakes your hand before you go your separate ways. The Stath does his Cockney SKULK-Smash thing, Considine does the reflective and measured cop-routine you may have seen in the Red Riding Trilogy and Gillen does the killer mentalist bit, you may have seen in John Cena-WWE Wrestling vehicle, 12 Rounds. I'm throwing around these contributions but they're playing to their strengths... we'll not Considine- i like him when he plays stupid or crazy too.
Like I say, this tale of a cat and mouse game played between cops and cop-killer is pretty by-the-numbers but it's not boring and it's certainly not convoluted. They've tried to make an 'R' rated police procedural, for and by the British and they've succeeded in taking the necessary elements from America and dressed South London locations and speech around them; you can tell it's written by a British not a Yank paraphrasing that accent.
What will say is that all these guys talk in soundbites and aforisms. I was in a fit of giggles when during a car chase, Considine says 'Head 'im off at the underpass...' (*bang* "I hate that cliche!!")
In fact, if you're in the mood to let kind of shit slide then go forth but otherwise it'll grate on you real quick. And maybe Gillen's cartoony human-monster is writ a bit too large but i liked it; he gets the balance of evil narcissist and panto villain, just right and my favourite concept about serial killers is the moment when they realise they become pop-icons and how they use that and Blitz plays a lil on that.
So Blitz is dumb and shallow and everyone involved should be using their time on better projects and in some cases, we've already seen these actors play these characters before but then, maybe that's why we bought the ticket... for a safe, undemanding 100mins.

I watched Blitz (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cracks (2009)...

The Mechanic (2011)

Oh Statham. How did it get this far? 

He doesn't look like he should be the current foremost action hero does he? He doesn't even look like he should be the current foremost boiler engineer from British Gas and yet 10years'n'change after the first Transporter movie here we are. 

Who is i to try and knock the appeal of the beefy lug? I've probably seen 90% of his output.70% of it is inarguable shit; stuff like The Bank Job and War but i keep coming back and God love him, for not trying to do any romantic comedies or broad drama- he's the poster boy for sticking to what works.
So The Mechanic, a fairly meat and potatoes action revenge assassin dealy. Seriously this scenario has been rehashed so many times in movies, the likely only reason the producers went to the trouble of licensing the remake of an old Charles Bronson vehicle was so they could reuse the cool 'Mechanic' title.
But you know, Staths is great in this.

Everyone else however made a major mis-step by participating.

Ben Foster- I'm sure I've seen Ben Foster be good in something but i have no recollection of what that was or it was Ryan Gosling or Jared Leto- You guys all look the same to me.

Here he plays Statham's protégé- an idea in it's self which is patently preposterous; Foster has the physique and presence of a meth-addict; not attributes he tries to cover in this movie. Are meth-heads dangerous? Indubitably yes. Could they assassinate a despotic … despot? No.

Donald Southerland turns up and wheels around for 5mins presumably looking to see if he can pick up his cheque from petty cash. But as with most films, it's not the actors that are at fault- it's either the director or writing. 

Here it's both. Simon West can certainly do this variety of bullshit action movie- Con Air proved that and as much as Tomb Raider was a disappointment, i don't remember it being so horrible but he does a really crappy job here. I guess he's not used to small budget action pics but this looks crap. He'll be directing CSI Alberquerque by the end of the week. 

The soundtrack too is just weird noises, at points. It sounds like the stage manager of the Avalon stage at Glastonbury Ipod on random. But most at blame for the failure of this movie must be the writers. Oh deary me. There are better written episodes of Baywatch Nights. It's just indicative of most of the things about this movie- the writers probably turned in one draft and the producers didn't even look at it and when they did it was too late to punch it up but that would have been too much effort in the first place. It would have been better if the actors had just made up they're own lines.
I'm beginning to realise that Statham is the best thing in his films but in the end, that's a bit of a false economy and it takes more than one man to make a movie.

Hmmm- 10 Stathams in a movie?

...

Back off Neveldine/Taylor, this ones mine!


I watched The Mechanic (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with How Do You Know (2010)...