Guy Ritchie’s latest catches up with gravity what he lacks in fantasy.
I love Guy Ritchie’s London gangster comedies – lock, reserve and two smoking barrels; Snatch; Gentlemen – but you wouldn’t call them exactly tight.
Anger of man, dominated by Jason Statham, the action star Ritchie has largely created, finds the director working in a whole different vein. This one looks more like a dark minor key concerto than a comic opera. Imagine a Michael Mann thriller except with a coldly determined and vengeful Charles Bronson character at the center of it.
Based on a 2004 French film titled The Conveyor (published in the United States under the title Box truck), Man’s anger relies heavily on the rhythms developed in Mann’s 1995 Heat. But this film, instead of focusing on cops and thieves as well, balances two exceptionally professional gangs who steal armored trucks in Los Angeles and their prey, the security guards who carry large amounts of cash in. them. All of this prepares for a gigantic clash on Black Friday, when the maximum amount of money is moved. (And Black friday would have been a more illustrative and better title for the film.)
Statham has proven he can play an entire movie with a smirk, like in the ridiculously over-the-top Carrier and Crank movies, but this time he strikes a stone and coiled as “H”, a mysterious junior employee raising money for an armored vehicle company. Despite intentionally tanking some of his tests so as not to arouse too much suspicion, he is. . . well, it’s Jason Statham, and he clearly doesn’t belong to that Paul Blarts crew. Ritchie takes a long time to slowly reveal who H really is and what their motivations are, so I won’t say too much. Let’s just say H is mad at something and he won’t quit until his anger is inflicted on various men, one in particular (there’s an unruly hothead ruining every carefully planned heist, and this time he’s played by Scott Eastwood).
Ritchie’s previous films are so wacky and whimsical and cowardly, and prone to drifting off on wild comedic tangents, that the gravity with which he infuses Anger of man comes as a big surprise. It’s a taut jockstrap, though it’s half an hour longer than some of the mid-’70s 90-minute drive-thru movies that inform it. As H grows within his security firm and moves towards a deadly goal unknown to the public, Ritchie resolutely focuses on creating threats and apprehensions, greatly aided by a musical score (by Christopher Benstead) so baffling that it could have been used in a horror movie.
With its chronological jumps, Anger of man has something of the feel of Steve McQueen Widows, and with the black-eyed determination of his protagonist, he recalls S. Craig Zahler Dragged through concrete. Instead of the usual and generally delicious stylized slang that Ritchie prefers in his scripts (this time written with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies), the dialogue this time is a lot less flashy, a lot more like the clean-cut badass patter of a tough guy. Vehicle Clint Eastwood or Chuck Norris. “Let me buy you a beer,” H said to a boring guy in a bar. “Just make sure you drink it over there.” As with a Bronson or Eastwood character, H can be a commendable sniper, but the only superpower he truly possesses is his absolute fearlessness. That, and an ability to resist pain.
Statham is excellent – when is it ever otherwise? – despite having much less verbal frolic than usual. In the few scenes where he does speak, he makes his words count. When he says the phrase “You must understand how ingenious and serious I am,” he is unlikely to leave anyone in doubt as to the applicability of these adjectives. And when he says, “I know who you love. And I hold a grudge ”, he is unlikely to receive a more dashing line than“ Yes, sir ”.
Although it is a solid and intense effort, Anger of man covers some well-worn narrative paths, and as a result, it’s not one of Ritchie’s best. Since Ritchie isn’t going for laughs but for courage, the most important aspects of a movie like this are the poise with which the action scenes are staged and the intelligence of the script that allows H to escape impossible situations. Either way, the film performs well, but no better than that. What’s also typical of the ’70s style let’s not be too smart that Ritchie aspires to. The ingredient list for this movie is brief and looks like this: meat, potatoes.