The Wrecking Crew review – Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa tear up the screen | film

HIt’s a live-action suspense comedy that’s a throwback to the kind of money-minting dumb fun of the 80s and 90s. It is said that a member of Phil Collins’ band is on the soundtrack and a reference is made to Jean-Claude Van Damme. One assumes that the target audience is males of all ages bloodthirsty for finely choreographed casual violence and stunts interspersed with pranks. As such, it gets the job done, plus it adds the bells and whistles you’d expect, like fireballs exploding in the background as characters flee the scene, large numbers of civilians being killed along the way without eliciting a drop of remorse from the heroes, and estranged siblings reconciling their feelings for their wayward and recently deceased father, and learning lessons about love along the way.

Yes, you read that last part right, because The Wrecking Crew offers a fairly informed post-therapy 2020s take on the genre — going so far as to give one of the main characters a child psychiatrist wife (Roimata Fox) willing to diagnose emotional dysfunction when the script calls for it. Otherwise, the action is dominated by Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, playing initially estranged half-brothers James and Johnny, who are overly muscled, inky, and spend the film trying to figure out who killed their father, Walter (Brian Qiulana), in a hit-and-run. James is the one who has a wife who is a child psychiatrist. He trains Marines and is a disciplined, tough citizen who simmers slightly with rage. Johnny, the Oklahoma-based cop, is a more rowdy and irresponsible alcoholic — a classic younger brother according to all the TikTok videos about sibling birth order.

Walter’s death brings them back together in their home state of Hawaii, which is presented in a particularly engaging way with lots of beautiful location photographs and drone shots. Meanwhile, the screenplay (written by Jonathan Tropper, who wrote and directed the recent TV series Your Friends and Neighbors), which is more interesting than it should be, acknowledges that there is a lot of corruption in Paradise, as various gang groups and corrupt characters are keen to exploit the beauty of the islands for their own interests.

The most gruesome character is a wealthy businessman named Robichaux, whose French name clearly alludes to effective brutality; Played by arthouse Studumuffin Claes Bang (The Square), he only displays ruthlessness by affecting a British accent and wearing a top knot. The final banter between him and Momoa is a gas, as is the chemistry between Momoa and Bautista, two likable lugs who clearly love each other. The entire package is an easy-to-digest guilty pleasure.