THE WRECKING CREW Review

Today's movie offering comes via Amazon Prime, and it stars two of Hollywood's current hottest gets, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa. I am looking at The Wrecking Crew.

The Wrecking Crew is a new direct-to-streaming action-comedy that follows in the buddy cop vein of flicks where two heroic characters are paired together to take down shady ne'er-do-wells. It walks the well-tread path of movies such as Hot Fuzz (my favorite film of all time!), 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon, and others. The catch to this outing is that our leads are estranged brothers; one is a mainland detective from Oklahoma (Momoa's Johnny), while the other is a Navy training officer (and former SEAL) still living in their home island of Hawaii (Bautista's James).

When their equally estranged father (everyone is estranged from each other in this flick, including Johnny and his girlfriend) is killed in a supposed hit-and-run, Johnny returns home and senses something is amiss. The brothers, who have no love lost for one another, start looking into the matter separately, but it's only a matter of time before their paths cross and they join forces to find out who killed dad.

What they end up uncovering goes far deeper than either could have imagined, as they fall into an underworld scheme where The Syndicate, the Yakuza, and one of the richest men on the island (and his wife, from whom he is estranged, Jesus!) are all involved.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ There is a particularly great action set piece in the third act on a Hawaiian highway where our team of protagonists are fending off a helicopter machine gunning them, as well as a team of bike-riding Yakuza assassins. It's easily the high point of the film. It's frantic and exciting and brutal. There are obviously action scenes all over this flick, but nothing topped the highway scene for me.

There's just something about putting heroes in a car and setting them loose on a busy street that action movies so typically get right. Think of the Nicholas Cage vehicle The Rock; think of The Raid 2. I don't know if it's a combination of claustrophobia and setting the adventure at literally multiple speeds, but it usually works. And The Wrecking Crew is no different. In this movie's case, it's also the only beat where we have Morena Baccarin and Jacob Batalon along with the team, and they add a lot to the scene.

+ Bautista and Momoa seem like they are having a blast in this, and their energy is infectious. Honestly, everyone seems like they are having the time of their lives, including Baccarin and Batalon. I know this is right up Momoa's wheelhouse, but allegedly these are the kinds of pictures that Batista wants to leave behind; still, it's a joy seeing him here and still giving way to smash-up flicks where he can flex his most basic acting muscles.

I complained recently in February's Thirteen The Fridayth article about some indie folk horror where everything seems depressed and like it must have been a chore to make for the cast and crew. The Wrecking Crew is about as opposite to that as you can get. It's one of those movies where the fun the actors are having is palpable; it leaps off the screen and beats you into submission. I can take that any day.

- There is an overly convoluted story to this one that is fairly easy to predict, yet at the same time is far too complicated and messy. I appreciate that they gave the story depth, but the screenwriters really extended themselves too far and too hard. It makes this run far longer than it should have been at an excess of two hours. You could have told a more simplistic story here since everyone's just in it to see Momoa and Bautista kick ass. 

It's actually somehow kind of impressive to combine predictability with far too much detail. But there are characters you can see coming a mile away, and there are turns that are absolutely telegraphed. The Wrecking Crew is trying to do too much with too basic of a premise. I don't recall the best Lethal Weapon movies needing to be this twisted up in their own plots.

- The movie could have done with more Morena Baccarin, who is written out of the plot for far too much of the picture. It's the Deadpool sequels all over again for her. And if you aren't already a fan of hers, you will realize when she is included why she should be in more of it. She's very enjoyable here when they feel like trotting her out; it just isn't often enough. 

The same can be said, to a lesser degree, of Roimata Fox and Frankie Anderson and Stephen Root. The movie only occasionally decides to remember they exist. And while I get that this is The Momoa and Dave Show... the damn movie is over two hours long! You could have squeezed more juice out of the supporting cast.

Buddy cop action flicks can be a lot of fun, but the problem with The Wrecking Crew is that you will spend too much time wishing you were watching one of the better ones. The film is too long, the plot is too convoluted, and the secondary characters don't get to breathe. That said, Bautista and Momoa are absolutely capable as the leads who play well together. I'd actually definitely watch a sequel starring them if they tightened up the screenplay better next time.

🍿 SCORE = 48 / 100