In expectation of Guy Ritchie’s upcoming Apple + heist film Fountain of Youth, it’s worth taking a look back at some of the director’s previous work to inform expectations. Ritchie has dabbled in just about any genre of film at this point; while perhaps best known for crime films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, he’s tackled everything from romantic comedies to live-action Disney remakes. Of his more recent offerings, however, the 2021 action thriller Wrath of Man has somewhat unfairly flown under the radar, at least in comparison to the rest of his repertoire. In spite of this, Wrath of Man is a tightly constructed gem of an action flick, and well worth worth re-evaluation as both a genre paragon and as a sterling slice of film craft.
Before proceeding, it’s worth saying that this article will, of course, contain spoilers. While it’s been a few years since its original release, the winding, circuital storytelling of Wrath of Man makes it a film best enjoyed for the first time with no preconceptions. Consider yourself warned.
Wrath of Man is, at its core, a revenge film par excellence, elevated above its peers in the crowded genre of action movies by a clever script, airtight plotting and a captivating non-linear narrative, centered on lead actor (and frequent Guy Ritchie collaborator) Jason Statham’s role as Patrick Hill – referred to throughout the film under the given nickname “H”. The continual unveiling of both Hill’s past and motivations is itself a masterclass in exposition of the “show don’t tell” variety. While the movie opens in medias res with an barely-seen cash truck robbery turned deadly, this brief but bracing primer is just an omen for events to come. The real story of Wrath of Man begins with Hill, introduced to us as a tenured security officer in the opening throes of a new career as a cash truck guard. Seemingly of middling talent and laconic disposition, Hill is shortly revealed to be an inhumanly precise, John Wick-esque specter of death upon the deadly resolution of his “first” robbery (perpetrated by a crew led by a nameless thief played by Post Malone). By slow degrees across a series of similar incidents, we begin to get the sense of Hill as a man with singular focus on the hunt for an unseen mark, governed by an idiosyncratic code of honor, before the film makes its first narrative time-skip backward.
It’s here, at the moment of this time skip, that Wrath of Man starts to show its brilliance, and exposes its non-linear narrative conceit. Chapter follows chapter, moving further back in relative time until finally being flung forward to the film’s denouement. Each successive act uncovers new details, peeling back layer after layer of opacity until the entire picture is at last laid bare.
It’s only after a few tiers of obfuscation are removed that Hill is revealed to be the alias of crime lord Mason Hargreaves, head of his own underworld empire. Hargreaves rules with a fair but firm hand, founded upon by the tacit threat of his own hyper-lethality. As it turns out, the story’s true catalyzing event – first seen in a broken, limited perspective during the film’s opening moments – is the death of Hargreaves’ son Dougie as one of the casualties of that initial robbery, present only by a tragic set of circumstances that followed from some bad intel given to Hargreaves by his subordinates.
Now the nature of Hill né Hargreaves’ vendetta becomes clear: vengeance for his child, lost under his purview. After ruthlessly and methodically squeezing the underworld dry of any information regarding the identities of the assailants responsible for his son’s death, Hargreaves takes matters into his own hands by using his criminal contacts to establish a fake identity and put himself on the receiving end of the cash truck robbery racket, under the impression that only a crew with contacts on the inside of the security industry could pull off such heists and disappear without a trace.
This hunch is proved correct when in the film’s penultimate act we discover the identities and motivations of our antagonists: a group of disgruntled and disenfranchised vets, specifically a tight-knit former spec-ops crew with collective difficulties adjusting to civilian life. Unfulfilled by a lack of opportunities to exercise their unique skillset and frustrated by the thankless and unrewarding routine of the 9-5 world, the crew finds their way through mutual contacts into the lucrative and high-thrill game of grand larceny – specifically that of robbing cash trucks. A job gone awry courtesy of some itchy trigger fingers results in the death of Hargreaves’ son, and so these two criminal elements are set inevitably on a path toward a final, bloody confrontation.
While the airtight, cyclical plotting of Wrath of Man is perhaps its defining characteristic, every other aspect of its construction is nearly as meticulously constructed. It’s foreboding tone, for instance, is so well established as to be all but palpable. While the deluge of curse words and cutting sarcastic wit that typify others of Guy Ritchie’s works are certainly present in Wrath of Man, the straight-faced demeanor of the cast and the story’s steady, deliberate pacing establish an air of gravity to the proceedings. Statham’s aloof, cold demeanor as Hill matches this tone one to one, and all this paired with Christopher Benstead’s menacing score results is an atmosphere positively dripping with tension at nearly every moment, heightened to a fever pitch during its brilliantly filmed shootouts. Here, too, Wrath of Man excels: “Hill’s” first robbery is as much a character study as it is action sequence, and the standoff that ultimately ensues between Hill and is as riveting as they come. All this to say that Wrath of Man stands as a keenly written and expertly crafted tour de force in a genre fraught with cheap thrills, and well worth a higher place in common estimations of Guy Ritchie’s work.