Jason Statham belongs to a special crowd of actors that I judge on a different scale. They're people who are great at what they do, but their range is highly limited to a subset of genres. Sometimes, they surpass expectations, like John Cena or Dave Bautista. But most of the time, these actors are happy in their own corner of cinema, and I accept their work with a different kind of grace.

So, even with that standard in mind, it pains me to say that Mutiny isn't just a rotten Jason Statham project; it's an unbearably dull action movie. It's a film where everyone involved is better than what's on screen, and it remains a total mystery how any of this ended up so bad.

For example, director Jean-François Richet once made the thrilling Mesrine duology, and his updated version of Assault on Precinct 13 is one of the better remakes of its era. Statham, nearing 60, has already leaned into his gruff charm in terrific character-driven films like The Bank Job and Wrath of Man to great success. Annabelle Wallis has a boatload of genre success under her belt, including terrific turns in Pekay Blinders and the Annabelle series.

During my screening of Mutiny, I kept asking questions. Not about the film itself, it isn't interesting enough for that, but about the production. Like, why does it feel like nobody wants to be here?

Richet feels completely uncertain about his material, leading to overtly complicated tracking shots when they're not needed, pointless exposition, and oddly inert scene transitions that always feel like they're one or two edits away from the finished thing. Mutiny feels like the work of an over-eager student who still thinks moving the camera makes the scene more impressive.

Statham looks like he's sleepwalking through a part he could have emailed in, and there's none of the ragged charisma that he usually brings to even the most pedestrian script. By the time he's supposed to deliver his big zinger at the end, I swear you can see him recoil at the thought of uttering one more word of this embarrassing script.

Said script is best forgotten entirely; goodness knows the film tries its best in this regard, but it's important to highlight how little of it makes sense even from scene to scene. Statham was once a highly decorated officer and British marine. His father died on the job because of a mistake he made, and now he moonlights as a quasi-bodyguard for Singaporean billionaires. He has a name, but it is irrelevant. He is Jason Statham, and he barely brings that to the role.

His employer is one of the Good Billionaires, and he treats Statham like a son. You can already see the buzzards sitting on his shoulder after the introductory sequence, where he and Statham play chess. I'm only amazed the script didn't call for a game of battleship, considering how heavy-handed it is everywhere else.

Once his employer/surrogate father is murdered, Statham goes on the run to find out who did the deed. He is framed by a criminal enterprise that can control the entirety of the Singapore police force, yet somehow needs a poorly managed shipping company to smuggle humans to poorly defined pirates.

At least that's what I think happens, but it's unclear if it's intentional. Statham calls the victims refugees, and we see men, women, and children in the extras. Yet suddenly all the men and the elderly disappear, and the film treats them as sex slaves. The entire operation is so underwritten that the victims become faceless objects, which only makes the entire thing feel hugely offensive.

It is entirely possible to make an action film about avenging victims of human trafficking and not include a screenplay; just ask The Furious. Your only obligation is not to make it boring.

But boring it is, and not even in a single novel or interesting way. Mutiny is such a dire effort that it can't even muster one cool kill or odd one-liner. There's an extended shootout in a stairwell that is so lazy that a brisk walk on a deck would be more exciting.

Most of the movie is people talking into a radio to repeat what they know, simply because director Richet makes so little use of his location. Mutiny has so little personality that you could place it in a bus station, and the experience wouldn't change one bit. Nobody involved seems to care and neither should we.