SHIP HAPPENS

Now playing in the multiplexes:

Mutiny--Since the massive success of Die Hard in 1988, American action pictures have gone through a long phase of "Die Hard in a..." [whatever]. So, Under Siege (1992) with Steven Seagal was Die Hard on a Navy ship. The Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle Sudden Death (1995) was Die Hard in a hockey stadium. White House Down (2013) with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx was Die Hard in the White House.

The format is the same—a skilled action hero, mostly alone though sometimes aided by allies, takes on a gang of repulsive, heavily armed organized mercenaries or terrorists in an enclosed environment, and screws up their efforts to do something nasty. This weekend brings Mutiny, which could be called Die Hard on a cargo ship.

Our hero this time is Jason Statham as a bodyguard who's framed for the murder of his shipping tycoon boss and friend. Disguised as one of the killers, he sneaks aboard a ship out of Bangkok and out at sea finds it to be a human trafficking boat crewed, to a man, by scummy lethal thugs. Very quickly he starts ruining their day by gruesomely ending their lives.

A newly assigned young Third Officer (Annabelle Wallis), the only crew member not in on the crime, helps Statham in his efforts to save the refugees. The shrewd captain (Adrian Lester) of a nearby U.S. Naval ship is also in his corner.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet from a script by Lindsay Michel and J. P. Davis, and produced in part by Statham's own production company, Mutiny is a deft, tightly-paced pleasure; one of the better straightforward action flicks I've seen in a while. The trick is that the villains here are so thoroughly odious, and their victims so poignant, that it's extremely satisfying when Statham mutilates them.

Richet also avoids the sort of cartoonish, over-the-top action—heroes being blown to safety by the force of huge explosions, as a friend of mine likes to put it—that has made so many action movies of recent years seem so silly. The fights and feats we see in Mutiny probably aren't that much more realistic than those in, say, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning or Bad Boys: Ride or Die, but Richet handles them with a lower-key tone that makes them more believable, and Statham's quietly warm manner helps with this as well.

Until toward the end, that is. Statham's final clash with main bad guy involves injuries to both men that seem hard to survive, let alone to continue mortal combat with. But the movie doesn't truly tip over into camp until the last line--indeed, the very last word--at which even Mickey Spillane might roll his eyes.