Blitz with Jason Statham

Psycho Killer Blitz

On one hand there's nothing special about this movie. It has all the typical things that a movie about cops looking for a crazed serial killer have. On the other hand the detail was excellent. Jason is appropriately menacing, the snitch is really sleazy, and the killer is a real whack job, kind of reminds me of Scorpio from Dirty Harry.

The cops (or the writer) made a couple of errors. The first one is when the whack job is apprehended with a bag full of money that the newspaper had just paid to the snitch, which whack job took after he killed the snitch. Cops couldn't hold him (they never can, the first time), but they didn't snap to the bag of money. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. On the other hand, the movie makers went to a lot of trouble to show us the bag of money, before, during and after. Were they going to use it for a different plot twist, in case they changed their minds?

The other error was in searching whack jobs apartment. They turn the place upside down and find nothing. Minutes later whack job shows up and pulls his bag full of incriminating evidence out of some storage space. That's what happens when you put someone like Jason in charge of the search.

There were a bunch of really good characters here. Paddy Considine as the new, queer (can I say queer, or do I have to say gay?), head of the cop shop. Jason, reprising Clint Eastwood's view in Magnum Force, doesn't give a shit. Zawe Ashton as a cop who used to work in narcotics where she was a "cop playing a junkie", but now she is a "junkie playing a cop". Ned Dennehy as the really sleazy snitch. He's so good at being bad that you are afraid that you will get something on you just by watching him.

Naturally we have the scene where our hero has to be restrained from beating the tar out of whack job when the arrest him. It really pissed me off, I really wanted Jason to knock the stuffing out of him, but oh, no, we can't have that, have to follow the rules you know. But we get our satisfaction in the end when our two heroes, queer and macho, serve justice a shortcut. Just have to remember that you can't use these methods on every nitwit bumbler who crosses your path.