Jason Statham strikes again and this time, he means business.

I've always liked Statham but his movies tend to be the same thing over and over and mostly, not very good.  IMO, this is his best in terms of action, FX, and production values.  Story-wise, this is very adventurous, but way, way over the top.  But, for me, it totally worked and I left very, very impressed.

It's funny, because almost every single character in this movie is bad, and I mean bad to the bone.  Everyone is a killer, everyone is on the take, and no one gives a shit about anyone...well, except for Luke (Statham) and cute little Mei (Catherine Chan).  We've got the Russian mafia who are all brutal thugs who enjoy killing as much as they enjoy drinking vodka.  We've got the Chinese mafia (Triads) who seem to be even meaner than the Russians.  And we have the NYC police force, who are as corrupt as corrupt gets.  Oh yeah...the mayor and his advisor are pretty evil and corrupt as well.

Everyone wants what little Mei has, and that happens to be a code that unlocks both riches and info incriminating everyone.  There's also a back story in which Luke has ties to both the Russians and the corrupt cops.  Oh, so many storylines and oh so much bloodshed and violence.

And it's the violence that makes this what it is.  It's literally shocking how high the body count is here.  Just downright insane.  But you know what?  The violence is done so well, it's also insane.  Awesome attention to detail in terms of bullet holes, explosions, bullet hits, hand to hand combat, stunt work, and FX work.  So impressive and even creative.

This had a nice $30 Million budget and it's nice to see it do $40 Million WW, while flying under the radar at the same time.

Lots of recognizable faces, good performances throughout, nothing overly cheesy, yet still a good message and entertaining wrapup.

Don't see this for the story.  See it for the nonstop action and try to pay close attention to how well all the action is handled and filmed.  My hat's off to Boaz Yakin (who wrote and directed) and Stfan Czapsky (Cinematographer).

I honestly can't recall any movies, small budget or big budget that did as good a job as they did here.  Very, very impressive and my new favorite Jason Staham flick.

3 thumbs up!    

Yeah, I thought this one was great fun. Lots of bullets, lots of ass-kicking.

And yeah, Boaz Yakin has been killin' it since he wrote Punisher in 1989!