Wrath of Man Parent Guide

Working security for armored trucks is a dangerous gig. After a particularly violent robbery results in the deaths of two guards and an innocent bystander, Fortico Security is forced to hire more staff, including the quietly menacing H (Jason Statham). Although he refuses to discuss his past, H proves to be an effective guard and a dangerous man to cross when he prevents a robbery and kills all the robbers. But there are more thieves in Los Angeles, and some of them are a good deal smarter than the dead criminals…

In the interests of fairness, I should mention that I’ve never been a fan of Guy Ritchie’s films. I did, however, believe he was basically competent in telling coherent stories, even if I didn’t find them enjoyable to watch. It seems I was mistaken. Wrath of Man is almost completely incomprehensible. Let me explain what I mean.

To start with, the dialogue sounds like it was written by a committee of 13-year-olds who have never spoken to a real human being before. Listening to the small talk between characters, mostly at the beginning of the film, pushed me into an existential crisis. I started wondering if I had just been in quarantine too long and forgotten what basic communication sounds like. But the longer it lasted, the more apparent it became that this film is simply a train wreck of bad screenwriting and implausibly stupid acting. The dialogue is so terrible that the 150 sexual expletives stand out, oddly enough, as comprehensible language amidst the babble.

What’s more, the editing is catastrophically stupid. There are a few unnecessary time skips which try to show events from multiple perspectives. Ironically, if Guy Ritchie had simply presented the story in chronological order, it would not only have made considerably more sense, it also would have been more suspenseful. As is, the movie is almost completely devoid of tension because it fails to properly introduce characters or give you any reason to care about their actions. You only figure that out twenty minutes down the line, at which point you’ve forgotten why you would have cared in the first place. It’s a mess.

Sprinkle that seemingly interminable vat of incoherent nonsense with a healthy pinch of graphic violence and you have a true dumpster fire sundae (to pile on my own mess of metaphors). I can think of a whole host of things I’d rather do than watch this: sit in traffic, stub my toe, clean my bathroom …the list goes on. Suffice to say, I think you can find a better way to spend two hours of your life. Just take a nap. Unconsciousness would be a considerable improvement over this assault on basic storytelling and character development. I’m going to have to sign up for ESL classes now, just to make sure the movie hasn’t permanently damaged my ability to understand English.