If you want ‘splosions and stunts and a handsome Aussie, this movie will give them to you.
SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)
Ovi Mahajan, Jr. (Rudhraksh Jaiswai) is the son of a major drug lord in India who is kidnapped by his father’s rival Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli). Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is a mercenary and former Australian SAS who is recruited by mercenary Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) to rescue Ovi and get him out of Bangladesh, where he’s being held. Naturally, stuff starts going sideways and Rake and Ovi now have to get out of a locked city and avoid the corrupt cops, the mob, and the random people trying to collect on Ovi. There will be guns.
END SUMMARY
This movie doesn’t have a ton in the way of “plot” or “drama,” but what it does have is A LOT of action scenes that are pretty great. It makes sense that the stunts in the film are expertly performed and filmed, given that Sam Hargrave, the director, has been a stunt coordinator on a bunch of Marvel movies in the past. Fortunately, he didn’t adopt the rapid-cut method that we see in a lot of those movies for all of the fights in this, instead having a number of decently long takes showing off some elaborate choreography and special effects.
Chris Hemsworth is… well, he’s good at what he does here. He’s funny when he needs to be, he’s cold when he needs to be, he’s brutal when he needs to be. He can hold a scene when it’s kind of weak, story wise, and he can react appropriately when the dialogue isn’t exactly gripping. That’s actually something that surprised me, because I expected a higher quality of scripting from one of the Russo Brothers. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s pretty much just a standard action-movie script. Still, it gets us from Stunt A to Fight B and that’s really all I needed. Hemsworth’s only failing is that the movie tries to give him a Die Hard-esque decline in health throughout the movie and, really, it doesn’t work because he’s just too handsome to ever look truly bloodied and broken.
Overall, it’s a fun movie if you like to watch stuff explode periodically. I thought it was fun.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.
The Joker On The Sofa 