Better Late Then Never

Best movie ever!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Good acting from consedine and believe it or not statham but the script is what let the film down. The film type cast of statham is painful to the point where there is not even any major character development you just have to go with he's the rough guy with a good Hart routine as per usual. Paddy consedine plays a good gay man with a dark side but the character is just a abusing the stereotype that a gay men are all clean tidy people who don't get there hands dirty as they make such a big deal of him being gay and getting his hands dirty, shown by a monologue into his past cases and the final reveal that he has helped stathams character kill the serial killer. Overall enough of a story to keep you entertained but not enough to re watch or recommend particularly. MR MH

Let's get one thing straight; Jason Statham is the bad guy in this movie.Statham is a hybrid good-guy/bad-guy, but he isn't your likable criminal, a la Porter in Payback; he's a bad cop - a really bad one. He steals from merchants, physically attacks suspects and witnesses while causing SERIOUS bodily harm, barges into private residences without warrants to search and stare-down the occupants, and intimidates the good-guys in internal affairs who actually try to protect the people. Statham's character is exactly the kind of thug psychologists talk about when they say cops and gangsters often share the same psychological profile. He's the worst type of criminal - the kind that exploits a position of power and authority to abuse the helpless - and this movie expects the viewer to empathize with him: impossible.Sure, there's a guy out killing cops that the movie tries to build up as its villain, but this killer was CREATED by Statham's police brutality and the system's unwillingness to bring him to justice. The killer got the idea to kill cops after being beaten half to death in a bar by Statham's character - for a misdemeanor. Statham and other officers literally play the tape back at the station to laugh at Statham's egregious physical abuse of a civilian. If cops are allowed to act like thugs (aka, Jason Statham's character), the murderer starts to look somewhat like a misguided victim of circumstance, or even an anti-hero. He cannot get justice through the legal channels, so, rather than live in fear of future attacks from Statham's character, he takes matters into his own hands.Aiden Gillen's villain/victim is a character with a complex psychological background, a cause that is just in principle (though horribly unjust in execution), and with circumstances that are interesting enough to warrant a camera on his activities. The murderer deserves to be the main character, and he would be if this were a decent movie. Instead, the film remains an amalgam of cop and action movie, with a subtext of condoning extreme police misconduct.Statham's supporting cast acts a little predictably and wooden, and are difficult to empathize with, one-dimensional, and unlikable. This has much more to do with the writing than the actors themselves, but it is definitely a major impediment to the movie's development. One fellow officer berates a man on her first date for saying he'll call, but not telling her EXACTLY when (she accuses him of intentionally keeping her waiting). Another officer unnecessarily chews-out this same beau for dropping her off at home, but not walking her to the door, even as the beau shows up to make sure she's all right. Other scenes add nothing to the movie but filler. A few scenes are entirely unbelievable, such as when a man has a 2-minute death scuffle with an assailant in his apartment, then is beaten to death with a hammer, and none of his neighbors hears. Still, production quality, Jason Statham's action sequences, and the performance of Aiden Gillen bring this stinker up to a 4/10.

BLITZ is a film with a plot that's all over the place. Ostensibly a Jason Statham-starring actioner, it opens with one of those 'only in the movies' fight sequences in which the Stath takes down an armed street gang who are busy trying to break into a car. As if to put across the message that this is set in the real world rather than the Hollywoodised action world of, say, THE TRANSPORTER, Statham then has to take a browbeating from his superiors and face up to the consequences of his violent act.After a time, the plot begins for real, with a crazed psycho cop-killer on the loose. Said killer is played by GAME OF THRONES's Aiden Gillen in the manner of Ledger playing the Joker, full of wisecracks and irritating mannerisms; I'm not a fan of Gillen in such roles, and prefer him more subtle as Littlefinger. Eventually, Statham gets wise to this guy and starts to hunt him down.The problem with BLITZ is a distinct lack of focus in regards to the plotting. Sometimes, it seems like Statham is a supporting player in his own movie; there's a whole, dragged-out sub-plot involving a female cop by the name of Falls (acted, badly, by Zawe Ashton) who's caught up in her own downward spiral. It has little to do with the serial killer aspect and it goes absolutely nowhere, other than to pad out the running time a little.There are plus points too - Paddy Considine gives a sensitive turn as a gay cop, and there's a nice line in humour sprinkled through. I appreciated the vigilante-themed ending as well. But this is a film that keeps leading you down dead ends, with frustrating sub-plots going nowhere (another is David Morrissey's journalist, again totally extraneous to the story). It makes you feel like a lot was left on the cutting room floor...

A good old-fashioned film where justice gets delivered by a cop who bends the rules and does it with pleasure and panache. The plot is nothing original and the pace is slightly slow, but the movie delivers a very satisfying payoff after all the buildup. This is not your typical Jason Statham movie where he takes on multiple assailants multiple times with superhuman martial arts moves that belong more in the Matrix movies than in real life. The few fights there are, are realistic, and the final one especially is very well done - no fancy kung-fu moves, just an expertly delivered beat down that will leave you basking in a warm glow of satisfaction.Pauline Kael called Dirty Harry "fascist" - if you're in her camp you will hate this movie, but if like me you're in the other camp - you know what I mean - you'll love it.