Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Mutiny review says that even though Jason Statham’s latest film marches to a very familiar beat, it’s still an exciting comfort watch. You know exactly what you’re getting.

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Jason Statham is magic.

I don’t say that lightly, and I definitely don’t say it because Mutiny is reinventing anything. It isn’t. This is another basic Jason Statham film: ex-cop, ex-special-ops, ex-law enforcing whatever, now working private security for a billionaire, who inadvertently gets swept into an international crime ring and — mostly single-handedly — sets about dismantling it with his bare hands, numerous firearms, and what I can only assume is a personal vendetta against the concept of a fair fight.

And yet. Even though you have the plot mapped out and the villains clocked in the first ten minutes, and the body count is very likely somewhere in the triple digits by the credits, his films are still entertaining. That’s the trick of it. Statham has built an entire career on the audience knowing exactly what they’re getting — and somehow still showing up for it, again and again.

That’s why Lionsgate keeps cranking them out, and why audiences keep flocking to them. Sometimes you just need mindless entertainment and a bag of popcorn, and Mutiny delivers exactly that.

Mutiny review — the predictable plot still entertains

Here, Statham plays Cole Reed, a former Special Forces operative turned bodyguard to a billionaire industrialist in the cargo shipping business — the kind of boss who plays chess (and loses) with his security detail between meetings, which is Hollywood shorthand for “he’s about to die and it’s going to be personal.”

Sure enough, Cole witnesses his boss’s murder, gets framed for it, and ends up on the run, chasing the truth onto a cargo ship out of Singapore. From there, you can guess the rest: tight corridors, shipping containers as cover, an international conspiracy that’s bigger than anyone initially let on, and a small army of disposable henchmen who really should have called in sick that day.

Helming it all is Jean-François Richet, who most recently directed 2023’s Plane — the Gerard Butler survival thriller that similarly stranded its hero somewhere he couldn’t easily leave and made him fight his way out. Richet clearly likes putting his leading men in a box (or in this case, a boat) and watching them claw their way free, as he brings that same confined, pressure-cooker instinct to Mutiny.

It’s a sensible pairing of director and star: Richet knows how to stage close-quarters action, and Statham has never met a tight hallway he couldn’t battle and bludgeon his way out of.

As for the obligatory attractive co-star — because is it really a Statham film without one? — that duty falls to the lithesome and lovely period piece and thriller queen Annabelle Wallis, playing a disgraced Navy officer who crosses paths with Cole aboard the ship. Wallis, whom you’ll recognize from Peaky Blinders and Malignant, brings a sharper edge than the role strictly requires, and there’s the expected simmer of will-they-won’t-they beneath all the gunfire — though the film keeps the two separated for long stretches, which mutes some of the chemistry. It’s not quite the flirtation-forward pairing Statham vehicles usually lean on, but Wallis holds her own in the action beats, which counts for a lot.

Is Mutiny original? Not remotely. Is it, at times, a little slower to get going than his best work, saving most of its fireworks for the final act? Also true. But I found it entertaining all the same, and that’s really the whole equation with a Statham film — you’re not there for surprises, you’re there for the reliable pleasure of watching a man in his fifties dismantle an entire criminal operation with his forearms. Mutiny gives you that.

It’s not going to be anyone’s favorite Statham movie, but it’ll do exactly what it promises, which is not, in the end, a bad way to spend a blessedly concise hour and a half. No bloat here, no directorial hubris, just fast, concise action and plenty of thrills.

Rated R

1 Hour 35 Minutes

If this Mutiny review encourages you to race out to the cineplex, find times and tickets at Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Mutiny review says that even though Jason Statham’s latest film marches to a very familiar beat, it’s still an exciting comfort watch. You know exactly what you’re getting.