Review: Blitz

Blitz is a no nonsense, easy-to-follow, gritty, British cops and robbers flick. It’s good guy vs bad guy from the get-go and nobody has to worry about getting lost along the way. Moon’s Nathan Parker has loaded the script with one liners, the majority of which are afforded to the “Stath”, who carries the movie.

Jason Statham plays hurley-swinging, poitín-swigging tough guy cop, Detective Brant, who's on the verge of a breakdown. The opening scene sees him “deal with” three hoodies trying to rob his car by knee-capping them with a hurley. Hurling, he says, is a “cross between hockey and murder”. With no respect for professional authority, he is the classic, unapologetic asshole who drops his fag in people’s drinks for no apparent reason other than he is an asshole.

Strutting

You expect a telegraphed redemptive element to surface for Statham’s character but it never does and that is the beauty of it. Statham has the luxury of strutting his stuff for 97 minutess without ever having to step outside his comfort zone. With everyone secretly loving the one dimensional tough guy, this recipe makes for a very enjoyable movie.

Statham’s character is assigned to capture the serial cop-killer, “Blitz”, as he wreaks havoc on London whilst leaking details of his exploits to the press. “Blitz” is a sadistic, deranged, infamy-craving, flawed killer who is like a cockney version “Joker”.

He is played out by Aidan Gillen who brings an edginess to this role and it is through his character that the boundaries of graphic violence are pushed. In fact, the violence is genuinely harrowing, one particularly messy murder scene (you will know the one we’re talking about) is bound to make you recoil and would even test a porn star’s gag reflex.

All in all the movie has no surprises and it is exactly what you think it’s going to be as soon as you see Jason Statham. There is no mystery or twist, it’s a piss-poor meal of a movie, however, the fact that it is salted with the hilarity of the one liners and extremity of the violence makes this movie palatable.

It’s a dull and trite movie which shouldn’t work but does, just because of Statham. To quote Statham from the movie itself, “If you’re going to pick the wrong fight, at least pick the right weapon” and when it comes to playing out the I don’t give a fuck, Dirty Harry role, Jason Statham is the right weapon.

William Costello