Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista Revive Action-Comedies With 'The Wrecking Crew'
Just when you thought made-for-streaming action-comedies had run their course, The Wrecking Crew (Prime Video) dispels much of the stale taste left by sub-par genre contributions over the last decade or so. Ángel Manuel Soto’s emphatically R-rated buddy thriller is a blast of fresh air in this season’s rote streaming options benefited by lithe lead performances from Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, two of the most charismatic beef slabs the screen has ever seen.
Bautista and Momoa Play Mismatched Siblings
The stars play mismatched brothers (what else?) who convene in their native Hawaii after their father is slain by sword-wielding Yakuza over his possession of a valuable flash drive (what else?). Bautista is a buttoned-down Navy SEAL, and Momoa a loose-cannon cop. Need we say more? The central mystery is essentially a sub-Chinatown plot presided over by an evil billionaire, played with panache by Claes Bang.
The Wrecking Crew Is a Successful Throwback
From its opening moments, The Wrecking Crew makes its nostalgic inspirations clear. Everything here—the soundtrack of pop-rock classics, the ultraviolet fight scenes, the colorful cast of side baddies, the cocaine consumption—is meant to evoke action classics of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it does so with a surprisingly sure and light hand. There’s an intention here that sets this film apart from those many other anodyne streaming flicks; it knows what fans of this genre want, and it delivers it with elegance but without fuss. If this had gone to cinemas, one imagines it would have been a substantial hit. Hopefully, it will rise above the streaming noise and not become just another anonymous title floating around.
Action Sequences Are Cleverly Staged and Surprisingly Gruesome
Director Soto, who previously helmed the well-received DC installment Blue Beetle, brings a particular punch to the copious action set pieces. There are some gags in here—including something unprintable involving a cheese grater and, later, a severed arm tossed about like a hot potato during a car chase—that are as gaspingly funny as they are genuinely nasty. There’s even a side-tracking oner that blasts memories of Oldboy’s seminal hallway fight; and while this isn’t up to Park Chan-wook standards, it doesn’t embarrass itself, either.
Prime Video
The only duff spot in The Wrecking Crew is the cheap-looking digital effects, which are so video-gamey they lose any weight whatsoever. It's most noticeable in a highway chase that’s conceptually exciting but executed with so much digital enhancement that all you can think about is how silly Momoa and Bautista’s big heads look photoshopped onto the Hawaiian backdrops. This is disappointing for a few reasons, but mostly because action movies live or die on their visceral heft. The reason so few examples of the genre have worked recently is that they’re afflicted with weightless CGI. Is it so bad that we just want to see real cars go boom? That the staging often rises above the suspect enhancement speaks a great deal towards Soto’s directorial talent.