Del and Mladen review ‘Mutiny’

Lionsgate

“Mutiny” Starring Jason Statham as Cole Reed, Annabelle Wallis as Angie Ellis, Chaneil Kular as Kameron Campallo, Ramon Tikaram as Tibu Campallo, and others. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet. Written by Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis. 1 hour, 35 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.

Plot summary: Cole Reed is framed for the murder of his boss, but he didn’t do it. He follows the real killers to a container ship owned by his late boss’s company and sneaks aboard as it sets sail from Bangkok, only to discover the ship is being used in a human trafficking operation. Reed must free the victims and clear his name, all in about an hour and a half.

Spoilers: Are there ever NOT spoilers?

Del’s take

“Mutiny” is “Die Hard” on a container ship – not that there’s anything wrong with “Die Hard” on a container ship. But one wonders where the line is drawn between homage and rip-off, because it sure looks like a lot more was borrowed from “Die Hard” than just  the concept.

Both movies take place in an isolated setting – in “Die Hard” it was Nakatomi Plaza on the night before Christmas; in “Mutiny” it’s the plodding container ship Artemis. Both leads are tough law-enforcement types who take on an army of bad guys. Both are, for the benefit of you claustrophobes, required to crawl through extremely dark, extremely tight places, like air ducts, ventilator shafts, or various pipe-like structures, while being shot at. There’s even a scene in “Mutiny” where Jason Statham, slithering through an air duct, fires up a Zippo to shed some light on his predicament, just like Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.”

But nowhere are the similarities more obvious – that would be flagrant – than in the movie posters. “Mutiny” is identical to “Die Hard,” and I say this as a guy who was once paid to design publications. The visual elements are the same. The typography is similar in size and positioned the same. The color palette is the same. Even the taglines – “40 stories of sheer adventure!” vs. “20 knots of sheer adventure!” are the same. What’s missing from “Mutiny” is a “Yipee-Ki-Yay, motherfucker,” catch phrase, but then it wouldn’t sound the same coming out of Jason Statham’s mouth.

And that’s the big difference between “Mutiny” and “Die Hard.” While Bruce Willis was a hapless and relatable everyman who just happened to be good at taking out bad guys, Jason Statham is a humorless berserker who grinds up everything in his path. But even that isn’t a fatal flaw because people do not watch a Jason Statham movie for the laughs. They watch a Jason Statham movie for the Three B’s – Bullets, Blood, and Body Count – and “Mutiny” provides all three in very generous helpings.

Statham plays the part of Cole Reed, a bodyguard for shipping magnate Ramon Tikaram  (Tibu Campallo), who has put up his company for sale. But Tikaram is killed in an ambush and the local police, who have been compromised by Tikaram’s killers, blame Reed for the murder. Reed tracks the killers to one of the company’s container ships, the Artemis, which is about to depart the port of Bangkok. He sneaks aboard and discovers it’s being used to transport human trafficking victims. Without much preamble, Reed becomes a one-man wrecking crew as he tries to free the trafficking victims and gain vengeance for his beloved boss, who is a kind of surrogate father to him.

“Mutiny” is rife with subplots and motivations. Reed’s father was a cop who got himself killed trying to rescue Reed from a dangerous situation. Plagued by guilt, Reed now seeks to avenge the death of Tikaram. Meanwhile, the ship’s third officer, Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis), a last-minute replacement for a sick co-worker, is trying to get home to her daughter in Los Angeles when she also discovers the human trafficking scheme. She and Reed become partners of circumstance in their battle against the crew. Then come questions about Tikaram’s son, Kameron, who may or may not be cooperating with the traffickers, and there’s also a band of Danish thugs who meet the Artemis on the high seas to take possession of their human cargo, presumably before the arrival of a U.S. Navy ship which received a distress call from Ellis before she was captured by the bad guys.

It sounds complicated but “Mutiny” is a stripped-down, high-tension iteration of the usual Statham fare, with lots of clever kills, including an almost hilarious exchange of knives between Reed and the movie’s primary antagonist, the Artemis’ creepy captain, Marko Madsen (Roland Møller). Semi-autos, machine guns, fire axes, spear guns and even a meat hook come into play, reminiscent of a John Wick slaughterfest.

Problems include the plot’s dependency on at least one too-good-to-be-true coincidence; some cheesy motivational elements; and the aforementioned borrowing of plot, scene and design elements from “Die Hard.” Much of this you’ve seen before – if not in a Statham movie then in a Willis movie, a Schwarzenegger movie or a Stallone movie. But none of that really matters because at a lean hour and 35 minutes, the story cranks along briskly and it’s over before you know it.

I’m giving “Mutiny” a B. I like the fact it was a lean, mean killing machine. I did not like the fact it borrowed so much from “Die Hard.” But in the end, how can I complain? A 95-minute respite from this broiling summer heat, and some-over-the-top mayhem, is just what the doctor ordered.

Yipee ki yay and anchors away, motherfucker.

Mladen’s take

Del must’ve slipped cocaine into his mid‑afternoon dose of Geritol before we saw “Mutiny.” Two hours, maybe two‑and‑a‑half, certainly no more than three, after the movie he texts to tell me to look at my email. The old timer had already written his take of this decent lil ole film of contained violence. A record. That’s a record for sure. Well done, Del.

I start by disagreeing with Del on the grade for this movie but it’s not much of a disagreement. B+. “Mutiny” is a B+ because, well, the violence in this movie is believable. Compared to the Wicks, and the two Sisu movies, the two Nobody misadventures, the Extractions or, for that matter, older films such as “Wanted” (2008), “Mutiny” is somewhat subdued.

All we have here is a bit of gun and blade play, though, I must concede, the use of the unlocked padlock to maim an opponent was fabulous. Oh, mustn’t forgot the harpoon gun.

It must be noted that Del and I use different scales for measuring movie violence. Del asserts that there’s plenty of the Three B’s in “Mutiny.” No, there’s not. There’s just enough to carry the movie forward. None of it overstays its welcome.

“Mutiny” features plenty of hide‑n‑seek as the Good Guy and Good Gal walk, run, crawl, and climb to avoid the Bad Guys. There’s some cool cinematography, dark spaces and tight spaces and machinery spaces. The cat‑and‑mouse schtick and the look and feel of life aboard an ocean‑going container ship felt authentic. The film is less blood fest and a bit more like something trying to tell a story.

Also, human endurance in “Mutiny” isn’t pushed too far past the realistic. No single round of hand‑to‑hand is prolonged, leaving the room to move to the next burst of chaos without me thinking something like this: “Only the perfect 6‑foot‑3, 230-pound Donald J. Trump, a known titan of combat and not a five-time draft dodger who wears diapers, could fight for so long.” By the way, if you want to see a thriller that seems to portray the frailty of humans in a face‑to‑face, life‑or‑death fight, give 2017’s “Atomic Blonde” a see.

The “Mutiny” plot pushes through as swiftly as Statham/Cool brings a submachinegun to bear. That the events letting that happen are much less realistic than the gun and knife and cargo‑grab hook violence is easy for me to overlook. Whatever it takes to get to the next battle is fine by me.

Finally, I liked Wallis/Angie. She was naïve at first (which bugged the hell out of me) but came around right quick. By the end of the film, she was thinking fast and had killed. Atta girl.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being too easy on “Mutiny.” I like Statham. He’s cool. From “The Transporter” (2002) to “Crank” (2006) to last year’s “Working Man” and with the couple of sci‑fi‑ish Megs thrown in, Statham leaves me with the impression that he’s doing exactly what he wants to do and enjoying it.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.