Jason Statham‘s known for pretty much one thing: cracking heads. From “The Transporter” to his most recent film “Parker,” if you see his big bald mug on the poster, you can be pretty sure that the film’s going to involve the actor kicking seven shades of shit out of anyone that crosses his path (with the possible exception of “Gnomeo & Juliet.”). If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or ideally, hit it with an iron pipe until it’s broke.
To some degree, “Hummingbird,” the actor’s next starring role seems to fit under the Stathspolitation genre, fits right in, but it’s got a little bit more of a pedigree than usual, and from the looks of the trailer that just hit Yahoo, we might have something a little different from the actor this time around.
Marking the directorial debut of Steven Knight, who won acclaim with his scripts for “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Eastern Promises,” it sees Statham play a haunted, homeless ex-soldier who takes on another man’s identity and becomes involved in organized crime in London’s Chinatown. The new trailer has a certain amount of ass-kicking going on, but the tone’s a bit more muted, leaning more towards drama than action, and very much of a piece with the dark underbelly of London that Knight’s shown in his earlier films. Benedict Wong (“Prometheus“), Vicky McClure (“This Is England“) and Agata Buzek (“The Reverse“) also star.
It remains to be seen how much of a stretch of Statham’s acting talents this turns out to be, but we’ve heard some good things and the clip certainly suggests that Knight has some flair for direction (he’s already wrapped on his follow-up, real-time Tom Hardy-starring thriller “Locke“). There’s no word on a U.S. release as of yet, but the film hits UK screens on May 17th, and you can watch the trailer below, while the film’s UK poster, courtesy of Total Film, is above.