Here is a straight to streaming action-thriller-comedy that is a throwback to the kind of pulpy stupid fun fare that minted money back in the 80s and 90s. The presence of a Phil Collins banger on the soundtrack and a reference to Jean-Claude Van Damme are tells. One assumes the target audience are males of all ages with a bloodlust for highly choreographed casual violence and stunts interspersed with quips. As such, it gets the job done, plus it throws in the bells and whistles you’d expect, such as fireballs erupting in the background as characters flee the scene, scads of civilians getting killed along the way while evoking not a drop of regret from the protagonists, and estranged siblings getting in touch with their feelings about their errant, recently deceased father, and learning lessons about love along the way.
Yes, you read that last bit right, because The Wrecking Crew offers a mildly enlightened, post-therapy 2020s spin on the genre – going so far as to give one of the main characters a child-psychologist wife (Roimata Fox) who is ready to diagnose emotional dysfunction when the script requires. Otherwise, the action is dominated by Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, playing excessively muscled, abundantly inked, initially estranged half-brothers James and Jonny, who spend the film trying to work out who killed their father Walter (Brian Keaulana) in a hit-and-run incident. James is the one with the child psychologist wife; he trains Marines and is a disciplined, solid citizen only slightly simmering with rage. Jonny, an Oklahoma-based cop, is more flamboyantly booze-sozzled, roistering and irresponsible – a classic younger brother according to all those TikTok videos about sibling birth order.
Walter’s death reunites them in their home state of Hawaii, which gets showcased in an especially flattering way with plenty of pretty location photography and drone shots. At the same time, the script (by Jonathan Tropper, who wrote and show-ran the recent TV series Your Friends and Neighbours), which is slyly more interesting than it needed to be, acknowledges that there’s plenty of corruption in paradise, with various gangster groups and corrupt figures keen to exploit the islands’ beauty for their own interests.
The most obviously nefarious character is a rich businessman named Robichaux, whose French name obviously hints at effete monstrosity; he is played by arthouse studmuffin Claes Bang (The Square), projecting cruelty just by affecting a British accent and wearing a topknot. The final big-boss banter between him and Momoa is a gas, as is the chemistry between Momoa and Bautista, two lovable lugs who clearly like each other. The whole package is an easily digested guilty pleasure.
• The Wrecking Crew is on Prime from 28 January.
