Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Jet Li, Jason Statham, John Lone,
Devon Aoki, Saul Rubinek, Andrea Roth,
Ryo Ishibashi, Sung Kang, Mark Cheng
Written by Lee Anthony Smith
Certification UK 18 | US R
Runtime 103 minutes
Directed by Philip Atwell
War. Heurgh. Good god, y’all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Actually, War, in this instance, isn’t quite that bad. It’s awful — look, it stars gravelly-voiced Jason Statham so it must be — but it is, at least, a daftly watchable revenge thriller. The gravelly-voiced Statham plays Jack Crawford, a gravelly-voiced FBI agent chasing Jet Li as the (thankfully) near silent Rogue, assassin extraordinaire. Crawford wants revenge because, a couple of years earlier, Rogue killed his partner and family. It could take some time to confront Rogue though: the assassin is busy setting the West Coast’s Triads against the Yakuza, so all hell is breaking loose. But, snarls Crawford — or possibly whispers, it’s so hard to tell with Statham — he will have his revenge. Remarkably, there’s a little more shade to the tale but it’s all completely undermined by the final twist, a revelation that’s meant to leave you reeling a la ‘oh my god, Bruce Willis is dead’ but, instead, will make you giggle like The Parrot Sketch. And that’s probably never a good thing with a thriller.