Joel on Film

By all accounts, The Wrecking Crew is a standard-issue actioner, starring a couple of muscular actors (one of whom was once best-known for his professional wrestling talents) in roles each of them could likely play in their sleep. Thankfully for us, the stars in question are Jason Momoa, whose charisma is seemingly bottomless, and Dave Bautista, who has spent the last decade or so establishing himself as a character actor of the most unexpected kind. We can also be grateful that Jonathan Tropper’s screenplay isn’t quite as empty-headed as our initial expectations from broad description might suggest.

Director Ángel Manuel Soto casts Momoa and Bautista as brothers Jonny and James, whose father is killed in an apparent hit-and-run in Honolulu, Hawaii. That, obviously, springs the two of them into action, and both, obviously, are equipped for the job: Jonny is a cop on a Native American reservation somewhere in Oklahoma, and James an active duty Navy SEAL who, at one point, responds to the idea of his “poking the bear” by informing the speaker that he, in fact, is the bear in that scenario. These men exude confidence and swagger, not only because they tower over everyone in the vicinity, but because these actors know precisely how to play these roles.

When the brothers, estranged for years until the funeral summons them back to their island home, quarrel with each other, for instance, it’s a knock-down, drag-out brawl, because of course it is. They might handle their relationships very differently (Jonny is separating from a girlfriend played by Morena Baccarin, and James is in a loving relationship with a child psychologist played by Roimata Fox), but nothing these two do when it comes to their own pride or integrity is half-cocked. That honesty is refreshing in the midst of a swath of movies that only define their heroes with either broad stoicism or jokey listlessness.

It’s not much of a defining element, to be clear, because the plot still puts them in a kind of routine sort of danger. The investigation into dad’s death unearths a whole lot of local political corruption, at the center of which seems to be self-possessed businessman Robichaux (Claes Bang)—whose name Jonny nearly always intentionally Americanizes in pronunciation, which is funny because the movie earns the moment he switches back to the French—and the gang of henchmen at his beck and call. It’s not much more than an excuse for action set pieces, which arrive at pace and are always impressive.

Soto’s approach is like a kid let loose in a toy store, so that every set piece is slightly cartoonish (no one’s leaning on realism in the visual effects department, that’s for sure) and always varied in location and purpose. There’s a pursuit on a highway between the two brothers—joined by Jonny’s girlfriend and James’ two kids—and Robichaux’s men, but the stakes are upped by the fact that the heroes are in a car, facing down a helicopter. The scenes of more intimate combat are intensified by surprising brutality, from the use of a cheese grater (to grotesque effect, of course) to the multifaceted climax, which is like the levels of a video game for these two (specifically, like the video games devoted to mortal combat).

The dissonance between this violence and the more sincere connection between the brothers is always present but never distracting, if only because Momoa and Bautista are convincing in whatever mode the movie needs them to enable. In addition to their reunion upon their father’s demise, there’s also the lingering resentment from their mother’s unsolved murder, which does provide a last-minute promise to give us a sequel but mostly just lingers. Again, it’s not much, and no one will accuse the movie of some depth which it certainly does not plumb.

What it does do, though, is provide some meat on the bones to this otherwise comfortably straightforward genre exercise. We get comic relief here (Jacob Batalon as a head-splittingly profane lackey to Robichaux) and a twist or two there (involving a culprit so obvious it threatens to tank the proceedings with its anticlimax, until we must recognize this sometimes comes with the territory). Importantly, we also get that sense of fun and the notion that the lead actors are enjoying themselves.

With a movie like The Wrecking Crew, that can go a long way. In this case, it gets us where we need to be—a place of enjoyment.

Rating: *** (out of ****)