Wrath of Man – Bluray Review

4 Stars Let the painter paint

H (Jason Statham) is a recent hire at an armored truck company. One with recent history of losing a truck full of cash and the two drivers in it, along with innocent bystanders. H’s exemplary past service at a now defunct Irish trucking company didn’t raise any eyebrows, nor did his just barely passing scores during his evaluation period, but when his own truck gets hit in a robbery his lethal takedown of the 6 crooks who attempted the hold up sets alarm bells off in the police, the mob, and everyone at the company except the owner (Rob Delany). H’s mentor, Bullet (Holt McCallany) seems impressed, but even he knows something hinky is going on.

Director Guy Ritchie pulls the layers of the onion back one at a time and we get to understand that H is no ordinary workman, and the crooks targeting his company aren’t like anything he has faced before. Wrath is a remake of the French film, Le Convoyeur aka Cash Truck.
Cash Truck IMDB

Wrath of Man (2021)
Released: 07 May 2021
Rated: R
Runtime: 119 min
Director: Guy Ritchie
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Cast: Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Josh Hartnett
Writer(s): Nicolas Boukhrief, Éric Besnard, Guy Ritchie
Plot: The plot follows H, a cold and mysterious character working at a cash truck company responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week.
IMDB rating: 7.2
MetaScore: 57

Disc Information
Studio: MGM
Distributed By: Warner Brothers
Video Resolution: 1080P/AVC
Aspect Ratio: 2.39.1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA
Subtitles: English SDH
Rating: R
Run Time: 119 Min.
Package Includes: Blu-ray
Case Type: Keep Case with cover
Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)
Region: A
Release Date: 7/13/2021
MSRP: $19.99

The Production: 2/5

Wrath of Man is a weird Bluray. Not the plot, cast, visuals or audio quality, those are all fine. It’s an MGM film released by Warner Brothers, so it’s not a Movies Anywhere release. The code you get is Vudu only. I saw it in a premium large format theater (I can’t remember if it was Dolby or IMAX), but there is no UHD release. If you redeem the code you get HD only. Or you can buy a 4K version on iTunes/Vudu but even that release is saddled with the same DTS-HDMA audio, no Atmos anywhere. There are NO extras on the disk. It’s like “We were contractually obliged to do the least possible with this release, so here you go, suckas!”

As for the movie itself it’s masterfully shot and from what I have seen of La Convoyeur it’s obvious Ritchie has a lot of love for that film. Based on the opening title sequence alone he has a dark vision for this release that uses Statham’s talents to full effect, has some of the best shootouts since Heat, and brings the oddball characters you expect from a Ritchie film. It was one of the first and best reasons to head back to the theaters as vaccines started allowing people to congregate again. So why did Warner shovel this out without any fanfare? Only they can say.

If you are a fan of either Ritchie or Statham don’t sleep on this one. But don’t go in expecting more than the bare minimum from the studio behind him.

Video: 4/5

3D Rating: NA

Terrific use of Bluray picture quality. Deep dark blacks and signature grit you expect from a Ritchie release. Tremendously disappointing there is no HDR 4K disk.

Audio: 4/5

About as good as a heist flick can sound without going Atmos. Deep gutteral gunfire that hits like a stomach punch. Solid dialogue that is wayyyy easier to understand than Ritchie’a past efforts which feature near indecipherable accents. The soundtrack leans heavily on slight variations of a grungy orchestral melody, but once you have heard the tick/tock beats of the Main Theme and Coffee Frother tracks you will get the idea.

Special Features: 0/5

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zero Point Zero.

Overall: 4/5

Despite the studio’s epic misfire on this release I want to reiterate that Wrath is a decent film. It’s Ritchie’s most approachable flick, Statham is Statham. And he’s backed by a solid cast of misfit characters played by Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Niamh Algar, Raul Castillo and cameos by Post Malone and Andy Garcia. Each has just enough screentime to make them memorable in their own way. The fights are fierce and creative. The ‘twists’, such as they are, don’t stand out to me. But each one was just enough for Ritchie to haul us back to the scene of the crime 3-4 times, and enough for us to get new perspective as each layer is rolled back.

I just remain mystified that we don’t get more to back this up. Maybe it’s the pandemic, maybe it’s the swirl caused by the MGM sale, maybe Warner doesn’t know what to do with this film. Whatever the cause, it deserves better.

Sam is both a moderator and reviewer at Home Theater Forum and is the voice behind Home Theater United, the Home Theater Forum Podcast which he started with cofounder Brian Dobbs. Sam has long advocated modest, best “bang for the buck” theater components and is loving every minute of this golden age of home audio-visual magic. Sam is a software engineer, a former volunteer firefighter, a current planning commissioner, leader of a large board gaming group and the personal servant of two tuxedo cats.

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Alan Tully

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I love a bit of Stath & haven't seen this yet, so I'll be buying the Blu-ray as soon as Warner gets around to releasing it in the UK.
 
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