The irre­press­ible screen pres­ence of Jason Statham

Guy Ritchie’s debut fea­ture, 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smok­ing Bar­rels, opens not with the for­mer child star (Dex­ter Fletch­er), nor with the stunt-cast foot­baller-turned-actor (Vin­nie Jones), nor with the cen­tral pro­tag­o­nist of the film (Nick Moran). Instead, the first scene is giv­en to the French Con­nec­tion mod­el with no pri­or act­ing expe­ri­ence, hawk­ing stolen goods to street pun­ters like you’d see down any dis­rep­utable Lon­don side street in the mid-90s.

This was our intro­duc­tion to Jason Statham, rat­tling off a charm­ing­ly con­fi­dent crowd-work­ing mono­logue like it was sec­ond nature as small-time hus­tler Bacon. The cheeky glint in his eye, rugged­ly hand­some looks, gen­tle razz­ing of the crowd gath­ered, and relaxed con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion project an ide­al of mas­cu­line cool­ness with­out being unap­proach­able. Even when events spi­ral out of con­trol – whether it’s being pre­sent­ed with a gaudy cock­tail or stum­bling upon a bloody pile of corpses – both Bacon the char­ac­ter and Statham the actor have just the right dis­dain­ful quip on hand that’s almost non­cha­lant in its delivery.

25 years on from that first appear­ance, it’s fair to say that not a whole lot has changed. Jason Statham has had a lengthy act­ing career most­ly char­ac­terised by play­ing slight vari­a­tions on that per­sona. Par­tic­u­lar­ly from the mid-00s to the mid-10s, a Statham vehi­cle was one of depend­abil­i­ty, a 21^st-cen­tu­ry take on the kind of schlocky action B‑movie which brings a com­fort­ing cer­tain­ty to it.

Whilst Lock Stock… posi­tioned him as a Lon­don geezer, it was 2002’s The Trans­porter direct­ed by Corey Yuen which solid­i­fied the Statham per­sona for a world­wide stage: rogu­ish ex-mil­i­tary/po­lice­man work­ing in the crim­i­nal under­world, who nonethe­less has a heart of gold so long as the right insane­ly beau­ti­ful woman cross­es his path, capa­ble of dec­i­mat­ing a room full of goons and dri­ving the bejeezus out of a car in a pinch. That sen­tence applies to Frank Mar­tin (the tit­u­lar Trans­porter) but also describes to vary­ing degrees Jensen Ames in 2008’s Death Race, Arthur Bish­op in 2010’s The Mechan­ic, and Lee Christ­mas in The Expend­ables franchise.

These are movies which don’t ask a lot of Statham dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Sto­ic swag­ger, relaxed con­fi­dence, and mak­ing even the lamest quips sound vague­ly cool. Phys­i­cal­ly, they rely on his abil­i­ty to con­vinc­ing­ly pull off tight action set­pieces which add to both the char­ac­ter and star’s mythos, a task his child­hood prac­tis­ing mar­tial arts made him adept at. In that first Trans­porter, Statham acquits him­self decent­ly with the bare­bones Luc Besson co-writ­ten screen­play (though he drowns in Besson’s typ­i­cal­ly awful efforts at con­vinc­ing romance), but he’s made as a Movie Star in the third act when Yuen’s Hong Kong action takes over. The oil fight where Frank bat­tles a room full of goons whilst slid­ing about shirt­less and cov­ered in oil is maybe the defin­i­tive Statham action scene. Impres­sive in its con­struc­tion, equal parts cool and sil­ly, and per­formed with total com­mit­ment by its star.

Even as the hits start­ed to dry up, that arche­typ­al Statham per­sona lived on. 2012’s Safe starts with Statham being atyp­i­cal­ly vul­ner­a­ble, his Luke Wright giv­ing into despair rather than resolved to vengeance once his wife is mur­dered by Russ­ian mob­sters. But one sub­way fight lat­er, he’s back to being the cool, con­fi­dent, sin­gle-mind­ed Statham we know, play­ing all sides effort­less­ly to come out on top. 2018’s The Meg was sold off the pos­si­bil­i­ty of see­ing Jason Statham punch a giant shark in the face (which he indeed does). Even Ritchie suc­cumbed to the Statham per­sona when the pair, 16 years after last work­ing togeth­er on Revolver, reunit­ed for 2021’s Wrath of Man, a con­vo­lut­ed crime thriller where Statham was a revenge-fuelled mob boss…playing all sides effort­less­ly to come out on top.

Still, it’s a per­sona which has served him well and made the few times where a role has played with that type all the more notable. His debut in the Fast & Furi­ous fran­chise, 2015’s Furi­ous 7, cast him in the rare vil­lain role of Deckard Shaw; an implaca­ble force of chaos against Dominic Toretto’s extend­ed Fam­i­ly who always turns up at the worst pos­si­ble moment. Lat­er entries would light­en Shaw up, give him a redemp­tion arc, and an invi­ta­tion to the fam­i­ly cookout.

The stark­est break from type undoubt­ed­ly comes from Paul Feig’s 2015 spoof, Spy, as CIA Agent Rick Ford. A pompous ego­tist whose list of car­toon­ish cock-ups – cul­mi­nat­ing in knock­ing him­self out with his own coat dur­ing a dra­mat­ic finale entrance – is only eclipsed by his unbe­liev­able boasts – includ­ing suc­cess­ful­ly imper­son­at­ing Oba­ma in Con­gress. Statham dis­plays a real under­stand­ing of comedic tim­ing, the knowl­edge of when to turn up his inten­si­ty to match the macho non­sense spew­ing from Ford’s mouth, and a self­less will­ing­ness to look a total fool that caus­es him to arguably steal the entire movie.

All of which were also on dis­play in the Crank duol­o­gy. Bacon intro­duced Statham to the world, Frank Mar­tin defined the tem­plate for Statham going for­ward, but Chev Che­lios may be the icon­ic Jason Statham role. Mark Nevel­dine and Bri­an Taylor’s glee­ful­ly offen­sive action-come­dies play up and under­mine the Statham per­sona at every turn. Che­lios is a much-feared Los Ange­les hit­man capa­ble of staving off the fast-act­ing poi­son inject­ed into his blood­stream from instant­ly killing him by sheer force of adren­a­line-based will, can bring the city’s under­world to its knees with­in just a few hours, and sur­vives mul­ti­ple ludi­crous Looney Tunes-esque deaths.

He’s also forced to utter­ly debase him­self in order to stay alive: Che­lios has sex with his girl­friend dur­ing a horser­ace in front of a sta­di­um of spec­ta­tors; sprints down city streets clad in only a waft­ing hos­pi­tal gown; attach­es a shock col­lar to his neck and barks like a dog, and clamps his nip­ples to a car bat­tery. Crank and its sequel Crank: High Volt­age over­load on so much testos­terone that they man­age to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly func­tion as both cool, brain­less macho action movies and absur­dist par­o­dies of brain­less macho action movies.

This is large­ly because Statham brings the same com­mit­ment he would to a more straight-laced role. He’s nat­u­ral­ly charm­ing, which keeps Che­lios enter­tain­ing despite the many awful things the man does in both movies. He’s con­fi­dent and assertive, which makes the many implau­si­ble feats Che­lios pulls off ful­ly believ­able, and the times when he gets rat­tled even fun­nier. Statham can sell absurd lines with a non­cha­lance that’s enter­tain­ing and ego­less, embrac­ing the ques­tion­able qual­i­ty of what­ev­er script he’s performing.

Across his quar­ter-cen­tu­ry career, Statham has come in for crit­i­cism about his lim­it­ed range and role choic­es. But there’s a cer­tain depend­abil­i­ty you get from a Jason Statham role, and he pos­sess­es a refresh­ing under­stand­ing of his capa­bil­i­ties as an actor. These qual­i­ties make those instances where a role of his unex­pect­ed­ly devi­ates all the more exciting.