I started Ted's MOVIE OF THE WEEK over three years ago and just realized I hadn't featured a film with one of my all-time favorite actors. Jason Statham is in The Expendables 2, which I showcased in the blog, but he was not in a "lead-lead" role in the movie.
The first major film I saw the English actor in a lead role was Luc Besson's The Transporter from 2002, and I've been a huge fan since. Over the years, I found Jason Statham in two other of my favorite film franchises, The Expendables and Fast & Furious.
Statham has been in over 50 movies, yet most American filmgoers might not have heard of Blitz, which is a U.K. film. Jason Statham plays a rogue British Detective Sergeant, who can be a bit of an A-hole. He teams up with a gay Inspector (and, no, they don't fall in love with each other) to go after a cop killer. In a movie, a gay law enforcement official may be uncommon, but it has ironic significance because homosexuality was criminalized in the United Kingdom.
Blitz is one of Jason Statham's most underrated films. Statham is not Dirty Harry, but Blitz brings some freshness to the crime thriller film genre. It's gritty and violent, but the combination of the sleek cinematography and color grading are unusual with harsh lights and muted colors.
I've seen countless police crime dramas, and they follow a fairly standard formula--the law enforcement protagonists go into a cat-and-mouse with some serial killer, terrorist, and so on--but Blitz stands out with its unique visual style, story depth, and satisfying surprise ending. Blitz is one of my top favorite Jason Statham films, and I think it should be on the movie watch list of every fan of crime thrillers.
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