Directed by:
Elliott LesterScreenplay:
Nathan ParkerCinematography:
Rob HardyComposer:
Ilan EshkeriCast:
Jason Statham, David Morrissey, Aidan Gillen, Paddy Considine, Luke Evans, Zawe Ashton, Del Synnott, Ned Dennehy, Mark Rylance, Ron Donachie (more)Plots(1)
London cop Tom Brant (Jason Statham) is unlikely teamed with his new gay boss Sgt. Porter Nash who's battling homophobia from within the force. Brant is on the track of a vicious cop-killer who calls himself 'Blitz'. With their prime suspect narrowed down to the seriously unhinged Weiss (Aidan Gillen) who demands to update his Facebook before he sees his lawyer, they lack sufficient evidence to charge him. Weiss is released and police continue to die. No matter the rules, no matter the method, Brant must hunt him down and stop him before he himself becomes the city's next dead cop! (Roadshow Entertainment)
(more)Reviews (4)
Characters with no proper motivation, whose behavior is sometimes borderline moronic (Gillen's villain), move around in a crime drama that attracted us with a promising theme and A-list actors via its trailer. If it weren't for them and the good soundtrack and the FB catchphrase, it would have whizzed by like a cheesy TV detective story.
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Jason Statham and his absolutely typical role of a tough guy without feelings, opinions, thoughts. Well, simply without anything. But in a movie that hides the typical England within itself. Just a pity that sometimes it's quite boring, which is saved effortlessly by the music. It turns a dull crime story into a lively one, but Jason always cuts it off clearly. The Transporter was a movie where Jason showed up. Since then, it's like something was missing from his acting. But what?
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It's a shame about the plotholes (and the pointless storyline with the black junkie), but the British do tend to have issues in this area. But they make up for it with other qualities. Like giving Jason free rein to fight crime in London. Brant is a great character, you can’t help but fall in love with him, even though he has to be at least the hundredth slant on hardboiled detective. The feeling of satisfaction with the final (non-)resolution of the case takes Blitz to the next level. This, lads, is a hurley. Used in the Irish game of hurling, a cross between hockey and murder.
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Jeez, it's by the book. I don't know if it's me or the film itself, but some of us couldn't decide whether it was meant to be a remake or a parody of Dirty Harry, awkwardly set in contemporary London. It's often got that street geek English suburbs thing going on, we're constantly moving between walls, welfare blocks, semi-mafia shops and whatnot, but most importantly it clearly wasn't made by a complete moron, because there's a clear overstepping of the brief of "make a moronic whodunit with Statham" in many scenes. Namely, for example, the murder of Robertson rather decently clears the bar. Unfortunately, Statham himself stands here in the role of a funny caricature who still can't use a computer, and even though he's constantly yelled at by his superiors to rein it in, he always blows them off and does things his way. And unfortunately, he can't be trusted to do anything other than probably smash my face in a fight. How the disconnected storyline with the fallen cop independent of the entire plot showed up at this party is just a rhetorical question.
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