Blitz (2011) [Blu-ray]
Crime | Thriller

Tagline: Cop-killer versus killer-cop.

Tough, uncompromising and totally un-PC cop Brant (Jason Statham) joins forces with Officer DC Porter Nash (Paddy Considine) to hunt down a serial killer (Aidan Gillen) who has been targeting police officers. This fast-paced action-thriller is a raw, gritty tale of moral ambiguity, outsiders and the sacrifices the police make to keep crime off the streets.

User Comment: poc-1 from Cork, Ireland, 27 May 2011 • Some nice camera work, stylish blurring, but pretty clichéd police drama. Jason Statham does what Jason Statham normally does, he's utterly typecast as kind of British Dirty Harry, but it's not new anymore like it was in Snatch/The Transporter.

His sidekick is not nearly as interesting as the little guy in Snatch or the girl in Transporter.

Good work from Aiden Gillen (the guy who played Tommy Carcetti in The Wire) as the bad guy. Zawe Ashton is also interesting as a WPC with a drug problem.

Mainly the plot seemed a bit disjointed and contrived. Overall it felt like a TV police drama. Nothing special.

Summary: Meh.

User Comment: Greenzombidog from United Kingdom, 26 May 2011 • A cop killing crim is giving the police the run around in old London town.

Blitz is a good movie that finally comes to life about 20 to 30 minutes in when we finally get to the main story. Once the chase is on with the odd couple partnership of tough rule breaking Tom Brant (Jason Statham) and gay straight laced Porter Nash (Paddy Considine) pursuing the cop killing criminal who's hungry for notoriety the Blitz (Aiden Gillen) the movie comes into it's stride. Before that we're inundated with so many characters it's a little confusing. What makes matters worse is that none of these side characters stories are ever really finished and the time wasted on them could have been spent giving a little more screen time to Porter Nash who is sadly underused.

Don't get me wrong though I enjoyed the film. Aiden Gillen is a brilliant bad guy, giving his character a Johnny Rotten swagger. I felt myself enjoying hating the Blitz and couldn't wait to see him get his just deserts but we could have done with getting a little more insight into his behaviour. Statham does a good job showing a little weakness now and then in his usually gruff demeanour. As I have already said Paddy Considine is great but not in it enough for my liking. London looks great and there is an exciting chase through the streets which is one of the high points of the movie.

I enjoyed the movie and would happily watch it again. It's biggest fault was trying to juggle too many story lines at once and unfortunately it dropped a couple of balls.

Summary: Good but not great.

[CSW] -2.7- First: This is not an action movie. If you expect a standard Statham flick, then you will be very disappointed. Statham has shown in other movies that given the correct script and director he can move outside of the "action movie" pigeon-hole most viewers want to see him in. Here, he comes really close to pulling it off. If they had dropped some of the subplots of the movies (namely the storyline involving Falls) and given more screen time to Statham and Paddy Considine (who play off each other very well), I think it would have been a lot better movie. I enjoyed parts of it, but for the most part, the story didn't hold my interest.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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