Jason Statham as Cole Reed and Annabelle Wallis as Angie Ellis in ‘Mutiny.’ Photograph: Dan Smith/Lionsgate / Click to view the trailer.

Mutiny starts slow.

Mostly to establish that Jason Statham’s Cole Reed, a bodyguard to shipping tycoon Tibu Camppallo (Ramon Tikaram), is a solid guy and, yes, a master of chess.

But once his friend is shot dead, Cole snaps into post-Crank mode: wiser, older and somehow more zen about all of it.

He leaves the running to his younger self, but the perps still get butchered in high-octane fighting scenes, knife-through-cheek style.

Filmed on location aboard a massive cargo ship at sea, Mutiny by French director Jean-Francois Richet makes Steven Seagal’s Under Siege (1992) look like an episode of The Love Boat tied up at the dock.

Sure, action movies love to hang helpless women off the shoulders of action-men, but Richet’s Hollywood track record—from Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) to Blood Father (2016), both great high-octane thrillers—has consistently made room for powerful females with soul and character, and Mutiny is no exception.

Annabelle Wallis plays Angie Ellis, the ship’s third mate with a military background, and she clicks with Cole as they hunt the evil onboard.

And Danish Roland Moller (who gave Charlize Theron a respectable adversary in Atomic Blonde (2017)) fills out ship captain Marko Madsen’s dirty boots with real heft.

All said, Mutiny is some of Richet’s and Statham’s best work.

‘Mutiny’ opens in cinemas on August 21.

FILM DETAILS
Title: Mutiny
Cast: Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Moller, Adrian Lester
Director: Jean-Francois Richet
Screenwriters: J.P. Davis, Lindsay Michel
Cinematographer: Brendan Galvin
Production year: 2026
Running time: 95 minutes