Review of Blitz (2011) by John M — 29 Sep 2011

An underwhelming detective thriller. The tagline for this is: Cop Killer vs. Killer Cop. It stars Jason Statham. Winning combination, no? I wouldn't say that I watched this with high expectations, but I was at least expecting something more entertaining than this.

Statham makes crazy movies for a living, and while this does feature a few of his gruff macho-isms, it's hardly a Jason Statham movie. What you have here is a paint-by-numbers bland detective serial killer movie.

It has nothing new to offer, and starts spinning its wheels around the halfway mark. It's not even that it is genuinely terrible; it's more of a disappointment than anything that they didn't really do anything with it.

I am a pretty big fan of the two stars of this movie: Statham and Paddy Considine. The only thing Statham is given to do is to growl tough guy dialogue, and you can see glimmers of what Considine can do, but his character isn't written well enough to fully showcase his talents.

The supporting cast around them is generic. The crazy serial killer just feels like someone who is playing a crazy guy. There's a thirty-minute subplot of a secondary character that could be cut entirely and nothing would be missed.

You've seen this movie done before with much more effectiveness.