By Dave Woodhall.

I thought this film had been and gone. I can certainly remember trailers of it a few months ago so it was a surprise to see that it’s only now hit the screen – maybe the Raoul Moat case had to be out of the way before it was released.

Was Blitz worth the wait? Well, sort of.

Jason Statham plays the un-PC detective Tom Brant (think Gene Hunt updated), the kind the police pretend they don’t employ any more. He’s in trouble for breaking one miscreant’s head too many and given One Last Chance when brought in on the case of a serial cop-killer, nicknamed Blitz and played with panache by Aiden Gillan.

To no-one’s surprise Brant finds himself lumbered with a gay superior, DS Porter Nash (Paddy Considine), and they run around London looking for their target, helped and hindered in turn by crime reporter Harold Dunlop (David Morrissey).

Naturally the two detectives become friends, the woman cop Brant thinks a waste of time (Zawe Ashton) helps crack the case and there’s a bone-cracking finale with few punches pulled.

All in all it’s a decent film that doesn’t descend into cliché very often – Considine in particular keeps his character on the right side of stereotype and credit to inexperienced director Elliott Lester for sticking to the back streets of the capital rather than having every scene played out against a backdrop of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. But it’s no Harry Brown – and neither does it come anywhere near the Guy Ritchie pics where Statham first made his name. There are some ludicrous and irrelevant sub-plots and reality has to be suspended once or twice too often. Worst of all for such a film, there’s no real tension as the body count rises.

With none of the cast turning in a bad performance but none particularly memorable either, you’re left with the feeling that Blitz is little more than a treading water exercise for Jason Statham.

You can watch the official trailer here

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