“Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels” (1998) / “Snatch” (2000)
Though it seems like only yesterday that we first spotted that gleaming pate on our big screens, it’s coming up close on two decades that we’ve been enjoying, or rolling our eyes at, or enjoying rolling our eyes at, the cinematic oeuvre of Jason Statham. For context, it all started way back when we were all still excited about Guy Ritchie —and that does seem like a very long time ago now. But, having been introduced to Stath, who was doing a little modeling at the time, Ritchie gave him his first film role in Ritchie’s own first film. As Bacon in ‘Lock, Stock,’ Statham, to be honest, doesn’t have to do a whole lot of acting. He’s a member of the four-man crew (alongside Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher and Nick Moran) who end up mixed up in the convoluted antique guns/money/superskunk caper that seems to cost everyone but them their lives, and Ritchie cast him because Statham’s own background as a hawker of not-entirely-kosher jewelry on the streets of London would see him right at home. And his inexperience certainly doesn’t show in the ease of his presence here, but it is partly because it’s a pretty small part in a large ensemble that we’re justified in coupling it with his next film, also for Ritchie, “Snatch.” His role is a little more central here as the dodgy low-end fight promoter struggling to maintain some professional ethics while surrounded by improbably named gangsters invested in throwing the matches. “Snatch” is the more bloated bigger-budgeted brother of ‘Lock, Stock’ and perhaps as a result, it hasn’t aged quite as well, being probably best remembered now for Brad Pitt’s unintelligible turn as a bareknuckle boxing gypsy with a sledgehammer right hook. But maybe because the Statham persona is coalescing here into its trademark growly unflappability, his is one of the parts that seems curiously timeless: Statham arrived on our screens eighteen years ago and doesn’t seem any older today. Nor much wiser, thankfully.
“The Transporter” (2002)
Trying to discuss the Statham’s career without mentioning this franchise-spawning 2002 Louis Leterrier/Corey Yuen title would be a little like discussing Marlon Brando and not mentioning “A Streetcar Named Desire.” It would be even more so, had Brando then gone on make a couple of sequels in which at one point he drives the streetcar, flips it upside down and scrapes a ticking bomb off its undercarriage (this actually happens in “Transporter 2,” though sadly only with a regular car, namely an Audi A8 W12). It’s the film that, for better and very often worse, defined Statham’s sleek, ridiculous, high-concept appeal: to use the more apt Bruce Willis comparison, it’s his “Die Hard” without ever being anywhere as good as “Die Hard.” He plays Frank Martin, an ex-Special Forces operative turned elite courier, the kind you call instead of FedEx when your package absolutely, positively has to be there on time, and absolutely, positively will require sending a dozen or more faceless goons to the morgue to do it. This first outing still has a smidgeon of topical interest in its Chinese human trafficking subplot and has plenty of inventive zip (note the co-director credit for fight choreographer Yuen) that somewhat compensates for that plasticky Euro-cheap sheen typical of a Luc Besson production; the second feels flatter, dafter and more formulaic; the third goes off the rails completely (some of us think in a good way); and who even gives a damn about “The Transporter: Refuelled” or the spinoff TV series, because they don’t have Jason Statham in them.
“Crank” (2006)
If Statham is already a divisive figure, Neveldine/Taylor‘s “Crank” is Statham slathered in Marmite: you either love it or you loathe it. We’re already on the record as being in the latter camp. A concept so high it could have come to Don Simpson in a cheese-induced dream during a fortnight-long cocaine bender, it follows the unfortunate, but brilliantly named Chev Chelios (Statham), a British hitman in LA who is injected with a lethal but slow-acting poison and who must keep his heart rate elevated to avoid dying. Cue a frenetic succession of increasingly ridiculous solutions where he tries to keep himself (and us) in a permanent state of over-excitement — chugging Red Bull, driving at breakneck speed, taking copious drugs, having public sex with his girlfriend (Amy Smart), getting into fights with every single person he meets and finally snapping some guy’s neck in mid-air while plummeting from a helicopter, then proceeding to make a telephone call. It could possibly be the Platonic ideal of the action movie — a film that makes a virtue of its ludicrous illogic to the point that you start to wonder if it should be classed as some sort of experimental non-narrative art project — except that it was followed by “Crank II: High Voltage” which is even more gonzo and features a bit where Chelios and his foe turn into Godzilla-sized papier mache puppets and duke it out in a power station. The first film, however, was the first time we really realized just what an unbelievably good sport Statham is, as he hurls himself into every scenario with a wholly committed seriousness that can only come when you’re deeply, deeply in on the joke.
“The Bank Job” (2008)
By no means a blistering classic, Roger Donaldson‘s period heist thriller is however solid, with some witty scripting flourishes from stalwart British TV writers Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement. It’s an enjoyably forgettable tribute to both the British gangster film genre and to other, better heist films of yore. But what does warrant it a spot here is the use of Statham in a role that, if not quite a subversion, is at least a modulation of his established hardman persona. No doubt because the plot’s based (with exceptional looseness) on the true story of the 1971 Baker Street robbery in London, here Statham, playing the adorably named Terry Leather, is subject to the normal laws of physics and biology, and so there’s precious little high-kicking chop-socky or weaponized menswear. Instead, there’s slight more chit-chat than we’re used to, but Statham negotiates the dialogue with appropriately deadpan grizzle, and laudably seems to take the opposite route to that of many other action-stars-going-relatively-straight, by significantly underplaying. Or maybe he’s just compensating for the severe wobble that was his previous title “Revolver.” In any case, Donaldson along with “Sense and Sensibility” DP Michael Coulter put together such a robustly built, stylish-looking package (aided by those natty ¾ length camel coats and co-star Saffron Burrows‘ alpine cheekbones) that even though it feels deeply familiar in storyline, it might just be the best-looking Statham film (at least until “Redemption“/”Hummingbird“). And considering he doesn’t even take his top off in it, that’s not nothing.