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.

Image by Netflix

“Carry-On” Starring Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Sofia Carson. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Rated PG-13. 1 hour, 59 minutes long.

Del’s take

“Carry-On,” the new thriller from Netflix, is “Die Hard” without the charismatic lead and relatable love interest. But its antagonist, while no Hans Gruber, does provide a satisfying level of menace and the Al Powell role is greatly and satisfyingly expanded.

“Carry-on” takes place at an airport, which I suppose makes it “Die Hard 2.” Taron Egerton plays the role of Ethan Kopek, the self-doubting and somewhat listless boyfriend of Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson), both of whom work at LAX. Kopek is languishing at his TSA job of running a metal detector over perpetually angry Karens flying from Los Angeles to wherever Karens go to roost. What he really wants to do is be a cop. But he applied and was rejected, so now he’s marking time and not really going anywhere in life.

After a pep talk from Nora, Kopek presses his boss, Phil Sarkowski (the always excellent Dean Norris of “Breaking Bad” fame) for a turn at the scanning machine, a step up from his lowly metal detecting duties. After some pushback Sarkowski obliges, and it’s here where events take a turn for the malevolent. Kopek is handed an ear piece over which he receives instructions to let a certain bag pass through the detector or people will die, including Nora.

Thus begins the meat of “Carry-On,” with Kopek racing against time, his fellow TSA agents, the Los Angeles PD and the mysterious voice over the ear piece (the unnamed Jason Bateman in a rare, dark role) to thwart a catastrophe.

“Carry-On” suffers from a couple of problems, most notably pacing, with fully the first half of the movie devoted to character development and backstory. At times the pacing was so glacial I was tempted to switch to “Squid Games 2.” But over a period of two days I managed to muck my way through all the nonsense about meeting Dad’s expectations and not letting one failure get you down, and finally the action commenced.

Once there the movie moved along briskly, admittedly with a few hitches in logic. I felt I was being asked to suspend my disbelief way too often, more frequently than in “Die Hard.”

The other problem was casting. Taron Egerton is a good enough actor and I loved him in the “Kingsman” movies, but here he seems weak and indecisive, not at all like Bruce Willis’ flawed but heroic John McClain. Sofia Carson was way too exotic for her role as Kopek’s pregnant girlfriend.

What Egerton and Carson lack as leads, however, Jason Bateman and Danielle Deadwyler more than make up for in their roles as antagonist and the LA PD detective who is inadvertently drawn into the terroristic confrontation. Bateman can’t match Alan Rickman’s energy as Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” but he doesn’t try. In “Carry-On” he’s a subdued avatar for evil, and maybe a symbol for the American imperative of capitalism at any cost. Deadwyler’s portrayal of Det. Elena Cole pretty much stole the show for me. I’d like to see her in a movie or TV show of her own. What else can I say? She was sensational!

If I were to grade “Carry-On” I’d give it a solid B. It’s a good enough action movie that’s slow to get going, and maybe I didn’t care as much as I should have about the protagonist and his love interest. But the action is terrific and the other characters are sufficiently engaging to carry me over the hump.

Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and a writer.

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

“Violent Night” Starring David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder and Leah Brady. Directed by Tommy Wirkola. 1 hour, 52 minutes. Rated R. Prime.

Del’s take

You were expecting the David Harbour action-comedy “Violent Night” to be “Die Hard” re-imagined? Think again. “Violent Night” is a strange synthesis of action, comedy and fantasy, as if Disney, The Hallmark Channel and John McClane had combined their energies to create a new telling of “The Night before Christmas,” one fortified with violence, gushy sentimentality and, of course, a stiff slug of eggnog.

“Violent Night” is the story of Santa Claus – yes, THE Santa Claus (David Harbour) – who finds himself bleary-eyed and half-crocked at a London bar on Christmas Eve, besotted with the spirit of Christmas cynicism. And why not? His job as deliverer of gifts to all the good boys and girls of the world no longer has relevance. Children these days, he rants to fellow bar patrons, are nothing more than greedy, bloodthirsty little capitalists who want more, more, and more while giving nothing in return, not even their belief in the jolly old elf.

Meanwhile, the uber-rich Lightstone family has gathered at the family mansion to go through the motions of celebrating Christmas. In reality the event is a chance for selfish daughter Alva (Evi Patterson), her actor boyfriend Morgan Steel (Cam Gigadet) and sulking teenage son Bert (Alexander Elliot) to suck up to hard-drinking, foul-mouthed matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo). Son Jason (Alex Hassell), his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder) and their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) linger in the background, the more civilized and less materialistic of the sibling groups. Jason’s priority is making his daughter’s Christmas wish come true – that he and ex-wife Linda get back together so the three of them can once again become a family.

As a hung-over Santa arrives at the family mansion (Do people this wealthy deserve gifts from Santa?) and stumbles about, tossing gifts under the tree and helping himself to expensive brandy, a band of terrorists led by a Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) invades the premises, kills the staff and takes the Lightstone family hostage. Their goal is to make off with the $300 million in government contract dollars the Lightstone family business received for work they never did. The money is hidden in Gertrude’s safe, which is said to be impregnable.

Santa wants nothing to do with this drama and tries to sneak away, but his reindeer are spooked by the gunfire and bolt to parts unknown, stranding Santa. Then he is drawn into the conflict by an accidental encounter with a bad guy, and the mournful pleadings of young Trudy, who shows some evidence of grasping the true meaning of Christmas. That’s enough to transform Santa into a pissed-off fly in the ointment, to borrow an expression from John McClane. When that happens, bloody mayhem ensues.

The violence is jaw-dropping – perhaps “jaw-breaking” is a better description. In one scene, as Santa carries on a soulful conversation with Trudy over a walkie talkie, a recently dispatched bad guy’s face burns to the bone courtesy of the holiday lights he was strangled with. And Santa himself is not immune to having his nose busted, his lip split open and his abdomen gutted. If Santa’s suit wasn’t red enough when the movie opened, it is by the closing credits.

Harbour turns in a solid performance as the jaded, burned-out Santa, and Cam Gigadet is funny as the brainless action movie star Morgan Steel. But it’s difficult to pick out particular actor or role as good or bad, as the creative staff can’t seem to decide what kind of movie it should be. A manic, absurdist comedy? An action movie, in the tradition of “Die Hard” or “The Long Kiss Goodnight”? Or a holiday fantasy about the true meaning of Christmas. The writers, and director Wirkola, appear to want all those things, and in the attempt it becomes none of them.

Ultimately “Violent Night” amounts to nothing more than its title, a violent Yule season encounter, with a nod to Charles Dickens, and Dr. Seuss. It’s not a bad movie per se, but it’s not memorable and will never achieve the cult-like status of a “Die Hard” or “Home Alone.”

I grade “Violent Night” as a B-.

Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

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“A Good Day to Die Hard” Starring Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch. Directed by John Moore. 97 minutes. Rated R.

Mladen’s take

Let’s do the numbers. The numbers of objects destroyed in recently released “A Good Day to Die Hard,” starring Bruce Willis as berserk New York cop John McClane.

I estimate 3,000 acres of windows, 83 cars and trucks, and at least three dozen people were smashed or blown to bits. And that’s just in the first 15 minutes of this film, the fifth in the “Die Hard” franchise.

Mayhem is what I expect when Bruce Willis reprises his McClane character but the action must be sensible. The first four “Die Hards” possessed useful violence. “A Good Day,” which has McClane and his CIA agent son administering punishment to Russians in Moscow and Chernobyl, was a blur of destruction.

Between flying cars and discovery of a stash of weapons-grade uranium, the McClanes move toward repairing their broken relationship. Apparently, there’s nothing like blood, brain splatter and radioactivity to bring a father and son closer.

R-rated “A Good Day” is almost completely flawed. Its counter double-cross is as predictable as my son’s reaction when I tell him to do a chore.

McClane’s son, Jack, is played by Jai Courtney. His biceps are bigger than my head but Courtney’s physique and good looks can’t compensate for his uninspired performance. Jack the CIA man has no charisma. Jack isn’t particularly likeable. Jack is a dolt whose aged father has to rescue him again and again.

The movie’s weakness could be attributed to poor screenwriting or the director’s over-reliance on action, but I fault Willis.

I was bored by the movie because Willis was bored by the movie. His one-liners were delivered without flourish or joy or that subtle exclamation that Willis always managed in past “Die Hards” when he survived the unsurvivable.

Recall the momentous and frenetic scene near the end of the fourth installment, “Live Free or Die Hard.”

McClane is driving a tractor-trailer on an elevated interstate. His nemesis, a computer hacking nut job, sics a Marine Corps F-35 on poor McClane.

The Lightning II targets McClane with missiles, blowing away pilings that collapse part of the interstate.

Next comes the cannon.

Shells blow holes in the tractor-trailer. It’s almost tipped on its side but McClane presses on.

He ends up on a piece of inclined interstate as the truck burns. More cannon fire. McClane rolls out of the truck and falls onto the tail section of the F-35.

Then, a piece of debris is swallowed by the fighter’s hover fan and it explodes. Out of control, the F-35 begins to rotate, flinging McClane onto another piece of battle-damaged, slanting highway.

The battered cop slides down the gritty road to land on his feet. As McClane limps from the wreckage – truck, aircraft and roadway all smoking – he looks back, grins and says, “Whew.”

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Perfectly executed. Perfectly understated. Perfectly unbelievable and perfectly plausible simultaneously.

None of that happens in “A Good Day.” It’s droll and the movie’s special effects come nowhere near to rescuing it. After this “Die Hard,” the franchise should have no trouble dying easily.

Del’s take

One night in 1988 I visited a local movie theater to catch a movie called “Die Hard.” I had few expectations – the movie starred a television actor whose work seemed incompatible with the badass requirements of an action hero.

I came away with my mind officially blown. “Die Hard” was a classic. Every aspect – acting, script, pacing, even the score – was first rate. I saw it again and when the video came out, I happily sprang $25 for the VHS tape.

What a difference 25 years makes.

“A Good Day to Die Hard” is a ridiculous farce – not so much an action movie as a disaster flick, and the disaster is the movie itself. Fans of the original movie and its scrappy protagonist, John McClane, will be shaking their heads and declaring the franchise dead. Another dud like “A Good Day” will cement that demise.

The shark has definitely jumped Nakatomi Plaza.

Mladen has already filled you in with the plot details. I’ll add the first 10 minutes of the movie are boring beyond description, and make little sense. When the action commences it is a pointless destructionfest with every car east of the former Iron Curtain smashed beyond comprehension, and no attempt made to elaborate on the overall direction of the movie. I found myself wondering if I were watching a POV rendition of a video game player’s chapter of “Grand Theft Auto.”

Worse, Bruce Willis’ character, John McClane, is reduced from a hapless but insurmountable everyman whom trouble seems to find, into a mumbling accessory whose inane and humorless pronouncements contradict the film’s subtext that while he is old, McClane still has much to offer the world of crime-fighting.

Next come the awful cliches – McClane is estranged from his son yet flies halfway across the world to rescue him from a Russian jail where he is being held on suspicion of attempted murder. The two meet amidst a chaotic situation and spend the next hour snipping at one another, the son constantly reminding the dad of how his absence ruined the son’s life until finally, near the film’s climax, the two reach a kind of rapprochement that you just know will have them walking off into the smoky, debris-filled sunset shoulder to shoulder, if not arm in arm, as the movie limps to its closing curtain.

Missing is the sharp-witted detective with the snappy comebacks whom every bad guy underestimates, replaced by a grumpy pensioner who ceaselessly complains his vacation has been spoiled by a thankless child. “A Good Day” lacks the single most important ingredient of a “Die Hard” film – fun.

Ironically, on the same day I saw “A Good Day” I also watched “Skyfall,” the latest James Bond installment. It deals with a similar theme, that of an aging crime fighter who may have lived beyond his usefulness. But “Skyfall” is Mozart beside “A Good Day’s” bubblegum pop. Smartly written and skillfully directed, “Skyfall” proves there’s hope for the “Die Hard” franchise.

If Sam Mendes decides to take on another failing action hero property, I can only expect John McClane to gleefully declare, “Yippy kay yay, …”

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and public information officer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.