This is a Jason Statham movie, but it pretty clearly is not his normal fare. I mean, yes, it had Jason beating up on people, but that isn't a core part of the movie. Yes, it is necessary for the character to advance in the story if he has unmatched physical prowess, but that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves in this review, isn't it?
Jason is a single parent who quits the DEA after a bust goes bad. He was an undercover cop with what we can only assume is significant hand to hand training in the military or something. He brings the pretty much required loner personality of the troubled guy with a heard of gold. As they establish that his wife died a year before moving to Louisiana, it is okay for him to start dating now, right? Good, because he gets a lady friend pretty quick.
Kate Bosworth and Marcus Hester play the parents of a little fat kid who is the school bully. When he picks on Jason's little girl, she kicks his butt. This starts a feud between Jason and Kate, as her husband knows his limitations, but he's so browbeaten by his wife that he is just slogging through life to try to get to the end at this point. Kate does a really good job with her role as the domineering redneck wife with a chip on her shoulder and an angry streak.
When Kate doesn't get any satisfaction from her husband's attempts as justice, she turns to her evil brother, played by James Franco. He is the local meth manufacturer, and he agrees to help throw a scare into Jason. I never thought of James as a particularly good villain before. When he tried to turn into the Green Goblin in Spiderman, it just didn't work out, but that may have been the dialog more than his acting. In this one, he does a reasonably good job. I was impressed that he has that kind of range.
James' cohort is played by an aging actress called Winona Ryder. She plays a skanky meth whore who acts as a runner for James' burgeoning meth empire. She makes contact with the lawyer of the guy who Jason put away (whose son was gunned down in the process) and offers him a deal to get James national distribution for his meth in return for the location of the cop who put him away.
Things don't go as planned.
The movie was written pretty well. The story is a bit predictable, but that's par for the course for these kinds of movies, isn't it? It was nice to see Clancy Brown show up as the local sheriff, but every time I see him, I feel the urge to make a Kurgen comment.
Story was good
Dialog was surprisingly good
Acting was good
Action was good
Direction was good
3.75/5