Jason Momoa. Dave Bautista. Action. Sex toys. Violence. But is Wrecking Crew an action film worth your time? A Wrecking Crew review. Men. They are manly, and the new action movie Wrecking Crew is very determined to show you this. It stars Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, who started geographically in very different places. The ... Wrecking Crew review | A manly film, with some men in it
Jason Momoa. Dave Bautista. Action. Sex toys. Violence. But is Wrecking Crew an action film worth your time? A Wrecking Crew review.
Men. They are manly, and the new action movie Wrecking Crew is very determined to show you this. It stars Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, who started geographically in very different places. The first three things we see Bautista do is teach manly people swimming, cooking dinner, and then identifying his dead father’s body.
Jason Momoa? His first three things are riding a motorbike, then swearing, then watching his partner leave him as he forgets her birthday, while simultaneously fancying a shag. A few minutes later, a man holds a knife to his throat while Momoa is having a tinkle, and he responds by pissing on them.
This, then, is Wrecking Crew, a big, glossy action film for Prime, that on the surface follows exactly the track you’d be expecting. Momoa is Jonny, Bautista is James, the pair half-brothers who come together when it seems their father’s death was a little more suspicious than first suspected. It’s your old mismatched buddy cop-style movie, just with a lot more tattoos and a flash drive in the shape of a penis.
Count me surprised then that director Angel Manuel Soto and writer Jonathan Tropper use this framwork to give their film a bit of a pulse. In a couple of different ways.
Firstly, this is very much a film with two action stars doing action, but in an era of contractual mandates in fight scenes and streaming action sequences such as the crap we got in Red Notice (where Dwayne Johnson may as well be tickling people for all the physical impact he implants on people’s faces), The Wrecking Crew is surprisingly brutal. I didn’t expect to write this, but in the early exchanges, there’s the outright crunch of Gareth Evans’ The Raid movies. While it gets a bit glossier and less interesting as the film hurtles towards its eventual finale, the intent to do something outside the same old was both seen and appreciated.
Secondly, while the film has the coating of old style action buddy movies, right down to the needle drop soundtrack, there’s work done to deepen the two lead characters. Sure, they’re men, and sure, half way through a fight scene one of them opens a fridge to get a beer, but also Tropper’s script does try and add a tad more vulnerability to the characters.
Mind you, it’s the side salad to the Manly Meat of fighting in a sex shop, joshing about anal beads and an unconvincing car smash interior shot where arms are waved a bit. You also get fairly thin side characters, the terrific Morena Baccarin for instance dragged in to restart the plot when it needs a bit of a jolt. Furthermore, there’s a welcome, albeit brief, blast of Jacob Batalon too.
With the requisite sequel set up, on the one hand, The Wrecking Crew can’t escape its standard elements and what it’s there for. An action film for a streaming audience, that doesn’t let the talking go on for too long, and rarely indulges with more manly clothes than necessary. But credit too: it works. It helps that the two leads have more to offer than just outright beef, bashing out dialogue with requisite glee, as they walk through exotic locations. And their chemistry works too: particularly when they’re on screen together, getting on each other’s nerves, there’s a good chunk to enjoy here.
Countering that, the framework remains utterly conventional, no matter how much the exotic and sunny-looking locations try and convince otherwise. There’s an old approach called the ‘whammo’ theory, where it was once schooled that you need a big action moment every ten minutes or so to keep the audience on board. I did get a sense of that here.
But I also got decent signs of life, some far better than expected action, and a breezy couple of hours with two leads who happily deliver what’s expected, with an added snarl and grin. A cut above most streaming-built action films, another helping would not be unwelcome.
