STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Detective Tom Brant (Jason Statham) is your typical loose cannon, unorthodox cop who doesn't play by the rules, who's been pushed to the sidelines a bit after a recent bit of bad press due to his strong arm method of tackling law breakers. But he finds himself plunged into a hell for leather new game of cat and mouse when a mysterious and brutal new serial killer called The Blitz emerges, slaying police officers in open air executions. As he draws nearer to his prey, the game becomes increasingly personal and the stakes are raised to biblical stakes.
The serial killer plot line is a curious device to employ in an action film, a naturally bleak and dark theme that has the potential to drown out any of the quick witted humour and thrills that the genre is known for. But even with this hanging over it, Blitz soon reveals itself to just be another high energy, fast paced Jason Statham action film, not making any effort to deviate away from the formula that's worked for the cockney hard man for ages, even throwing away all the suspense by revealing the killer's identity, Columbo style, pretty much at the start of the film.
With this in mind, it still admirably manages to come off as an above average one, consistently entertaining enough till the end, even as it just goes through the motions to the inevitable outcome, Statham in the lead doing his usual grumbling, hard bitten tough guy act and even a surprisingly lively supporting cast, including Aidan Gillen, Paddy Considine and David Morrisey not really raising the performance bar in any great way.
One notable fault that does niggle enough to be a criticism is the messy, slapdash manner in which various sub plots are thrown in, jumbling up what should be a quite simple, A to B story and throwing the dynamic off course a bit. Still, it generates a style, atmosphere and entertainment value that is enough to make it a worthy recommendation. ***
Detective Tom Brant (Jason Statham) is your typical loose cannon, unorthodox cop who doesn't play by the rules, who's been pushed to the sidelines a bit after a recent bit of bad press due to his strong arm method of tackling law breakers. But he finds himself plunged into a hell for leather new game of cat and mouse when a mysterious and brutal new serial killer called The Blitz emerges, slaying police officers in open air executions. As he draws nearer to his prey, the game becomes increasingly personal and the stakes are raised to biblical stakes.
The serial killer plot line is a curious device to employ in an action film, a naturally bleak and dark theme that has the potential to drown out any of the quick witted humour and thrills that the genre is known for. But even with this hanging over it, Blitz soon reveals itself to just be another high energy, fast paced Jason Statham action film, not making any effort to deviate away from the formula that's worked for the cockney hard man for ages, even throwing away all the suspense by revealing the killer's identity, Columbo style, pretty much at the start of the film.
With this in mind, it still admirably manages to come off as an above average one, consistently entertaining enough till the end, even as it just goes through the motions to the inevitable outcome, Statham in the lead doing his usual grumbling, hard bitten tough guy act and even a surprisingly lively supporting cast, including Aidan Gillen, Paddy Considine and David Morrisey not really raising the performance bar in any great way.
One notable fault that does niggle enough to be a criticism is the messy, slapdash manner in which various sub plots are thrown in, jumbling up what should be a quite simple, A to B story and throwing the dynamic off course a bit. Still, it generates a style, atmosphere and entertainment value that is enough to make it a worthy recommendation. ***