Why I Can Watch Jason Statham Do Nothing But Read A Telephone Directory. Or Watch Him Order Chinese Food.
By The Messy Optimist
So…true story. And I have ZERO f…ing shame admitting it.
I can spend hours watching Jason Statham read a telephone directory. Yep. You heard/read that right.
OR…I can just watch him order Chinese food.
Like, just think about it.
Statham, with that delectable English accent which you know makes even the most mundane and trite words in the English language sound so posh and sophisticated saying kung-pao chicken, fried wanton, moo-goo gai pan, chicken egg-foo young, pork lo-mein and so much more.
Yumm.
Or I can just watch him fish. Or sleep onscreen.
Basically, I can just stare at the dude (and try not to drool if I can help it) doing absolutely nothing.
I’m a Jason Statham junkie. I have, literally, watched every movie he has ever been in. Many of them I’ve watched multiple times. And while I have a laundry list of items that I look for when watching a movie even one time:
- The story has to be unique or a mundane and done-to-death idea needs to be presented differently
- The actors need to melt into their roles completely
- The director needs to ‘get’ the genre
- The music should be that perfect combination of bold and audacious when it needs to be to add momentum to the narrative but not-so-loud that it completely drowns the dialogues
- The cinematographer needs to play with colors and add to the director’s vision
- The editing needs to be modern enough that it doesn’t feel dated but is not so out-there that the non-linear storytelling completely messes up the audience
Like I said…LAUNDRY LIST.
BUT — none of that stuff matters when I watch a Jason Statham movie.
Bad script = OK by me. (Don’t judge me! Like you have written anything that anyone wants to read? Because you’re Philip Roth and Salman Rushdie’s offspring? Puhlease!)
Bad acting = A-OK. (It’s not like he’s trying to win an Oscar FFS.)
Bad Cinematography — Double OK. (What are you? An expert on cameras? You with your Redmi or Samsung or LG phone? Oh, no? YOU have an iPhone? So, what? That makes you a visual auteur? Whatevs.)
Ridiculous plot points = What’s that now? (You — who can’t come up with a sensible lie to get out of doing your homework — how many grandparents have you killed already? How many times has your dog run away with your assignment? You have opinions on Jason F…ing Statham’s films and its plot points?)
Unbelievable story lines = So bloody what? (Sit the f… down.)
Like I said…none of that matters when it’s Statham.
You think I’m kidding? I watched the crazy-ass migraine-inducing complete and utter nonsense high-on-crack movie called Crank. Twice. In the theater. Want ANY more proof that I’m a Jason Statham junkie? No? I didn’t think so.
So, just what is it about him? What makes otherwise sensible and normal folks like me give up all of their standards when it comes to someone like Jason Statham? It’s not like he’s the best-looking of actors out there. He doesn’t even pretend to be a ‘good’ actor. He’s not young. If anything — he’s on the wrong side of middle-age and is balding to boot.
Yeah…not a whole lot going for him, you’d think.
But you’d be wrong.
For one…he fills out a formal suit unlike no other. No one, but no one, can drop kick and do side splits and kick box wearing a perfectly un-creased black-and-white slim-fit suit and then have the audacity to look completely normal. Any other gorgeous lead actor — even imagining said scenario will come off looking and sounding like a fool. But Statham pulls off the ridiculous like he is to the manner born.
He fights like no other either. All the fight sequences in his movies are like choreographed ballet dances. There’s a sense of rhythm and artistry, it’s poetry in motion and has that un-nameable, unknowable something-else, that ‘it’ factor which transforms even the most absurd and comical into something sublime. What also sets the action sequences apart from other films like say a Quentin Tarantino film — is that they’re not as viciously violent.
Among his best qualities as a headliner is that he makes the funniest and laugh-out-loud scenes on film which even an actor-of-all-actors, a la Robert De Niro, cannot pull off — look completely normal and reasonable.
Don’t believe me?
Please watch The Meg. If De Niro had one-sided ‘conversations’ and interactions with a killer whale — we would roll on the floor and die laughing and think it was completely bonkers insane but when Statham does it — we are on his side and get pissed off at the bloody whale for being such an asshole. He makes the silly look completely and totally plausible.
What I love about Statham is that for the 90-odd minutes of his films — he gives total and complete value for money. There’s always something funny going on — he tosses wry and sardonic quips, there’s always a silly and stupid villain which makes it easy for us to root for Statham, and even in a decade-long franchise like the Furious movies where Statham started off being the villain as Deckard Shaw — we ended up rooting for him. I swear…when he first appeared as Shaw…I wanted him to drop-kick the bejeesus out of Vin Diesel’s whiny Dominic Toretto. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one since he co-headlined the next in the series with The Rock.
And ends up entertaining the crap out of us.
And with his films peppered with the inevitable amazing action sequences, there is never a situation which requires us — the audience — to be more involved in the story or the plot than we need to be. It doesn’t tax our brains and, most of all, it is one hundred percent value for money.
But guess what?
He is bloody fantastic playing Jason Statham and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
