Put a fight on, anywhere, and people will come to see it if they know it's there. This is the ethos that Statham lives by. And its done him no great harm so far. Lest we forget, he may be derided for doing formula movies with no challenge, but he was never the last word in the thespian art anyway. So what is wrong about pandering to an audience that have no appetite for actual acting talent? If they want nothing more than high kicking and automatic weapons, who can really deny them?
Well, you pays your money etc etc, and we can shorten this review by some margin by saying that this is not quite (ahem) like every other Jason Statham movie you have ever seen. It's not as action packed as Transporter or as clever as Crank, but besides these two, there really isn't alot of originality bubbling away here. Once you've seen Jason looking hard and pissed off and with a purpose, you're pretty much done. There is an attempt at tears, to display just how upset this hard man really is, but like everything apart from the choreographed action sequences, it comes off as a little hollow.
Ex cage fighter (I mean really, what else?) Luke (Statham) has pissed off the Russian mafia by not taking a fall in the second round of his last fight. The Russians are annoyed because they had made a very big wager that he would. When he didn't, they lost all their money and now they want revenge. They do this in a way to bring the aforementioned tears to our hero, who then goes off the deep end, enthusiastic about ending it all and having little or no reason to carry on.
That is until he bumps into Mei, a young Chinese girl with a flair for numbers. She is carrying a very valuable, long and special number in her head. So special is it, that there is little that the aforementioned Russians and some equally determined Chinese wouldn't do to get their hands on it. As luck would have it for Mei, Luke appears to have a heart (wouldn't you know) and he appears to be focusing all of his efforts on keeping her from either Russians or the Chinese who have their own agenda for what to do with her when they have prised the number out of her. Throw in some dirty cops and you have all of the ingredients for one good man against all the baddies. Can you guess what might happen by the end?
Well, you're not going to win any prizes but suffice to say you're probably right. This is a 'film it by numbers' effort and you won't take away anything new from it. The action sequences are decent enough, if not imaginative or unique and those who like their movies with bangs and whistles will enjoy it. For those out there that like to think about what they've just paid twelve quid to see, then you may want to spend your money elsewhere. Formulaic actioner with no real bite.