Wild Card

Ladies i would like for you all to listen!

What do you do to make a man really happy ? ( Except for seeing you dressing sexy of course )

There are 2 things men love, in all ages.

1. All seasons of Dallas on dvd, Patrick Duffy is every mans fantasy.

2. To see guys like Scott Adkins, Tony Jaa and Jason Statham kick ass.

If you follow these 2 rules, any man will marry you. As you can see, i know just how men works. Speaking of Jason Statham, since Transporter he have really become a legend in action martial arts films. He knows he can´t do drama films, so he stays in the action genre where he knows he belongs. There are many good titles with Statham, and of course some that did not manage to deliver enough. I have tried to follow his latest releases, hoping to see him try something different in the action genre. He did become a little bit more serious with the film Homefront. There was plenty of action, but you could tell that the script were more dramatic. Even if Homefront became a box office flop, it was ok. Since the first Transporter film came out, it seems to become harder for Statham not to repeat himself too much. Let´s face it, most of his films have followed the same path, he wants to revenge someone´s death, or he is paid to take someone´s life. He actually surprised me with a film that many people have not seen, have you heard of Hummingbird ( Redemption ) ? This film was a box office failure, but it showed us Statham do a different character than usual, and i have to say i did enjoy this film. It seems that people want to see Statham do what he usually does best, fighting and shooting, so when he does something different, the audience seems to avoid it. So here we are with a new film with Jason Statham, that takes place in Las Vegas. Is he Elvis Presley ? No, i would have loved to see that, but this films seems to be a different choice for him, with a completely different story than usual. Since i enjoyed his performance in The Expendables 3 last summer, does he manage to deliver this time also, or should he have stayed in his usual pattern ?

Nick Wild ( Jason Statham ) is a recovering gambling addict, who takes odd jobs, to make sure he can continue to gamble. One day self-made millionaire Cyrus Kinnick ( Michael Angarano ) Contact Nick, to pay him to be his personal private guard, to show him around Vegas, and also protect him while he is gambling. Since Nick always need money, he accepts the job. While having a drink at a diner, Nick gets a phone call from his friend Holly ( Dominik Garcia-Lorido ). She ask him to come to her house. As he arrive he notice that she have been abused. She tells him that she was beaten and raped by 3 men, at The Golden Nugget. After a date she was invited to a party, where these men abused her. She begs Nick to find out who is behind this, telling him that she wants to sue them. Nick does not really want to get involved, since he had his problems with law before, but accept to help her. Nick find out that one of the men, who was behind this abuse, is known as Danny DeMarco ( Milo Ventimiglia ). He is a well known ganster. Nick locate Danny to confront him, about what he did. Danny ignore Nick, and try to act tough. Nick beat all 3 guys down, while Holly enters, threatening to chop off his balls, unless he really show her that he is sorry. Holly finds out Danny have 50.000 dollars in his desk, she takes the money and leaves instead. She splits the money in half with Nick, while Nick warn Holly she should get out of town. Just after Holly leaves, Nick take Cyrus to a casino to gamble half the money he got from Danny. It turns out he is lucky, and win 506.000 dollars. While he is cashing in the money, he suddenly change his mind about keeping everything, and gamble it all away. With no much money in his pocket, he gets drunk and pass out. Cyrus takes him to his hotel room, so he gets some sleep. As he wakes up, and head to the bar, Danny´s men visit to beat him up for what he did to Danny. Nick take them all down. Nick goes to a meeting with Baby ( Stanley Tucci ), mafia boss of Las Vegas, Baby tells Nick he knows what he did to Danny, and warns him that if he is guilty, he could be killed. Nick proves that Danny started this, as Baby change his mind. He let Nick go free, still this means Nick have to find a way out of this mess.

If you are expecting a lot of fighting, lots of guns, you might be dissapointed. Wild Card is definetely not the typical Statham film, you could say this is one of his most serious films so far is his career. Is that a good sign or a bad sign ? Personally, i think it is great that he tries a different character, and not repeat himself too often. We all see him as the action hero, maybe our generations own Chuck Norris. Of course he will never be like Chuck, but there are not many actors out there that can do action films like Statham, except for Scott Adkins of course. One of the things i found interesting about Wild Card, is that there is actually a plot here. In some of the earlier Statham films, it was all about the fighting and guns. This film have a much more serious tone, with a view on Las Vegas and all the problems that can be included. Statham does not use his fist all the time, he uses more dialogue, and does a pretty good job. I can imagine that he want to develope himself, choosing a different kind of story, instead of the usual revenge story. Most actors try and choose different scripts, and i can understand if Statham feels the same way. Wild Card is not original in any way, or give us many surprises. What makes this film work is thanks to director Simon West, who directed the action classic Con Air, and worked with Statham on The Expendables 2. He seems to want to make a different revenge film, where Statham use his brain more than his fists. This is actually a remake of the 1986 film Heat with Burt Reynolds. I have seen the original film many years ago, but since i don´t remember exactly everything about Heat, i can´t compare these films. I would say that Wild Card manage to deliver, in it´s own way. This is not Jason Statham´s best film, there are other titles i would recommend over this one. But i suggest you give it a try, mostly because this is a very different character to see Statham do on screen. Maybe i should head down to Casino Cosmopol in Sundsvall and try my luck ? Oh what the hell, if it goes bad, i can always hit the bar, whiskey always makes everything better.

Rating: DDD