Jean-François Richet swaps the confined cockpit of ‘Plane’ for a hulking cargo ship, but the change of scenery does little to sharpen this formulaic revenge thriller. Jason Statham plays Cole Reed, a former Special Forces soldier and Metropolitan Police officer now working private security, who is framed for murdering his shipping magnate boss and sets out to clear his name and uncover a wider conspiracy. Annabelle Wallis appears as a crew member drawn unwittingly into the chaos, while Roland Møller snarls his way through the role of the ship’s corrupt captain.
The opening act, built around corporate intrigue and a suspicious death, feels disconnected from everything that follows once Reed sneaks aboard the vessel. The film pivots abruptly into a human trafficking subplot that raises the stakes without adding much complexity, and the transition between the two halves is clumsy enough to feel like two different scripts stitched together. At a brisk 95 minutes, the film never lingers long enough to develop its supporting characters, several of whom exist purely to be dispatched.
Statham brings his usual physical commitment to the fight scenes, and the climactic brawl against Møller has a nasty, inventive energy that briefly justifies the ticket price. Elsewhere, though, the action feels curiously flat, hampered by a script that recycles beats from countless earlier Statham vehicles. Fans of the genre will find a serviceable time filler here, but ‘Mutiny’ rarely rises above the level of a well worn formula going through the motions.