Mutiny, The Dog Stars and Hope

by Philip Price

Mutiny 

Photo: Lionsgate

It’s genuinely impressive and kind of crazy just how long and just how steadily Jason Statham has worked while maintaining the same register. Sly, Arnold, and especially The Rock have all had careers that ebbed and flowed and took on different eras, whereas Statham has largely existed in the same zone for going on 25 years now. We like a man whose brand of justice and vengeance is simple, and Statham has consistently embodied the slightly oxymoronic but now trademarked virtuous violence that better suits a January or August release than anyone else.

​Truth be told, “Mutiny” is exactly what we want and expect from the nearly 60-year-old action star, yet director Jean-François Richet's “Die Hard on a Boat” is clearly putting in minimal effort to clear a low bar come the climactic fight scene, and it really shows. It’s a half hour before Statham is throwing punches when there is no reason the film shouldn’t open with a flashback to Statham’s Cole Reed saving the life of Ramon Tikaram‘a Tibu, his present-day employer and the CEO of a cargo shipping company, who later talks of Cole being like family because he once saved his life. Unacceptable. A movie like “Mutiny” should wallop the audience with an inventive action sequence every 20 minutes, challenging its hero at every turn, yet Statham is seemingly so good at his job he rarely encounters an obstacle he doesn’t immediately have an answer for.

“Mutiny” might have also benefited from a more intimidating baddie than Roland Møller‘s crooked Captain - the script not giving him much to play with and Møller‘s portrayal adding little to the terror he’s meant to inflict - but hey, at least they seemed to film the majority of this on an actual shipping freight in actual locations. Take the wins where we can, I guess, even if “Mutiny” will end up on the lower rung of Statham’s legacy catalogue alongside the likes of “The Mechanic” and “Wrath of Man” than those that exercise innovation within their genre limitations à la “The Beekeeper” or “Homefront.” Steady is the hand.

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The Dog Stars

Photo: 20th Century Studios

Ridley Scott can’t help but make something compelling, no matter the material he’s given or how quickly he tries to capture it. Toeing the line between a post-apocalyptic drama and a cologne campaign shot in the mountainous regions of Abruzzo, “The Dog Stars” isn’t necessarily dog shit in any shape or form, but it lacks shape and form, not to mention intention, making the components - each valid in their intrigue - lack of integration disappointing. 

Said lack of cohesion, and as a result, investment in the story, was evident as my mind wandered during the screening to thoughts of how badass a team-up between Josh Brolin’s character Bangley and Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Ian Kelson would be, wondering how Sam Spruell feels knowing the exact reasons he is cast in certain parts and trying to find details throughout that might lend themselves to a better title. Roaches? Grand Junction? Hell, “Hig & Cima” might have been better despite sounding like a Tuesdays at 7 Central CBS sitcom. 

Guy Pearce is still undefeated, and if you’d like to see what he can really do in a society-in-decline dystopian drama, go look up David Michôd's 2014 flick, “The Rover”(it’s on HBO Max now). All the intention and specificity of such a world, lacking in “The Dog Stars,” can be found there.

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Hope 

Photo: Plus M Entertainment

Overstuffed and underdeveloped, director Na Hong-jin‘s hybrid of countless movies you’ve seen before begins so audaciously it’s impossible not to be swept off your feet in some regard. Used more as a character technique than a narrative one, we’re dropped in media res in a place called Hope Harbor where neither the town nor any of its infrastructure - including the public servants - seem to operate in any traditional sense. Ideas around surveillance, fate and/or luck and the ineptitude of man float in and out of what little story can be pieced together, but nothing about the film's construction feels natural.
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It’s nearly an hour into “Hope” before we get a glimpse of the so-called “freaking huge monster,” and when it does fully reveal itself, it is so comical one wonders if it is intentionally so, even as the brutality of the violence remains in line with and is depicted as intensely as it was before the creature emerged from the shadows. Half an hour later, editing choices become apparent that do the pacing a disservice when, from an outside perspective, simply structuring scenes differently would have allowed for more weight to what is essentially (and ultimately little more than) a barrage of action sequences. 

Not that I’m averse to impressively staged action sequences (Na Hong-jin should replace Louis Leterrier on “Fast Forever” NOW), as the climactic chase sequence contains some of the most insane and visceral action moviemaking we’ve encountered in some time, but for a film whose action has so clearly been poured over in detail in order to craft moments audiences have never seen before, everything else in the movie feels like it was made up along the way; the drastic swings in tone from one moment to the next only emphasize this feeling of improvisation.