Review of Blitz (2011) by Manu G — 21 Aug 2011

Annnd yet again I find myself staring at a movie cover that's simply a picture of Jason Statham, a cool word for a title, and an unspoken promise of ridiculous amounts of action. I reacted to it in a way that one would react to an addiction and popped it into my Xbox.

Here are my thoughts this time around. Blitz had an interesting, if not tired, premise, and a few reasonably reliable actors to bring it to life. The biggest issue with the film was it spent a lot of time focusing on secondary characters that just weren't that important.

The serial killer, for example, didn't need as much screen time as he got. The audience simply doesn't care about him, they just want to see Statham beat his ass. And that's where the most unfortunate part edges its way in; Statham doesn't really kick any ass this time.

I mean he does, obviously, but not to the extent that I've been trained to expect. The other thing about this movie, and I noticed this largely because it reminded me of my own underdeveloped filmmaking techniques, is that it seemed to work on each scene as its own individual project, going to unnecessary extents to make each one unique.

It was cool, but it resulted in a huge lack of stylistic continuity. Certain scenes just didn't seem to make sense in context with one another, and unless you're intoxicated off your ass and not going to remember the movie anyway that's always a noticeable flaw.

One thing I must mention, though: there's a scene where Statham laughs his ass off. I'm pretty sure that's never been done before, and it's worth seeing.