Do you like cop movies? Do you like Jason Statham as a brooding bad-ass who loves to beat the ever loving crap out of scumbags? (Isn’t that all of the time?) Then there is no reason at all you shouldn’t love the British flick Blitz. I can’t really figure out why the hell it wasn’t in the U.S. cinemas, because anything with Statham in it is worth some box office bucks. But as it is, we get it later in the U.S. straight to DVD. I guess I got it cheaper and it was well worth the money.
Blitz follows the antics of ‘Detective Tom Brant’, a cop who takes the law into his own hands quite a bit… with extreme prejudice. The scene at the beginning where he handles a group of young thugs is classic Statham, with a bat no less, and one of the best lines spoken by him yet – “If you’re gonna pick the wrong fight at least pick the right weapon.” That’s right all you punks, fear him. Things get even more interesting when we are introduced to the film’s antagonist who has a penchant for killing police. Especially those from the same station as Detective Brant, and as time goes on it seems that there is something personal between the killer and our gruff hero.
Once again Jason Statham plays the tough guy in this movie, but nothing like out of The Transporter or The Expendables. This time he’s a cop in the big city, with his mental well-being teetering on the edge, and what seems to be a slight drinking problem. If anything I’d liken him to Riggs from Lethal Weapon, but without the personal tragedy. Unless I missed something Brant just likes to use excessive force on bad guys now and then, but he’s still a good cop. Statham played him with a brilliant touch of heavy sarcasm and I loved every second of it. A great scene was when a guy providing Brant with some info in the pub asks the detective if he’s going to write down any of the stuff he’s giving him. Brant then replies incredulously – “Do I look like I carry a pencil?” before knocking back a pint of beer.
Things get a little more interesting when Brant teams up with the newest addition to his station, and a man who is his polar opposite played by Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz). This is the usual cliché’ in cop movies where two vastly different breeds of cop team up to bring down the bad guy, but it worked a little better than normal in Blitz. Considine’s ‘Porter Nash’ and Detective Brant cut through all of their differences when Brant pays him an impromptu visit to his apartment. The two reach a mutual respect in that scene, and as Brant leaves he calls Nash a pillow biter to get in a jab at Nash’s sexual preference that has gained him so much enmity throughout the police force. It was a great moment as the uber hetero-cop and the homo-cop join forces to take down the cop killer plaguing their station.
Aiden Gillen (The Wire, Game of Thrones) plays the quirky and attention seeking cop killer perfectly named ‘The Blitz’, obviously relishing in the role of the crazy SOB since he hasn’t been able to do that since the horrible 12 Rounds movie starring him and wrestler John Cena. 12 Rounds was assuredly a terrible movie, but Gillen was excellent as villain ‘Miles Jackson’. As ‘the Blitz’ though, Gillen was equally as devious, but with a more realistic approach to it. He was the type of criminal we might have in this day and age where the bigger the crime, the harder it is to convict them.
Overall I give Blitz a 4 out of 5 grizzlies. With cop dramas being a dime a dozen it was nice to see one with every actor in it firing on all cylinders. I hope Statham does a lot more of these types of movie instead of straight up action, because he really excels in movies like Snatch and The Mechanic.
If you’re interested and there are no longer any videos stores near your house, Blitz is available at Redbox & on Netflix Instant Queue!
Grizzly Bomb 