The Wrecking Crew is a low-budget action movie that was quietly dropped on Amazon Prime with practically no marketing. Sounds like a good time, right?

It stars Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista as two estranged brothers. They are forced to reunite when their father dies, and as the circumstances surrounding his death become more intriguing, they have to work together to uncover whether it was really just a random hit and run, or whether there’s something more sinister going on.

Back in the day, you used to get the bargain bin direct-to-video movies that starred big-name actors looking for a quick and easy paycheck. Now, with the decline of physical media, those movies end up free to watch on streaming sites. This is one of them.

I didn’t really have high expectations for this film, but thought that it could be a fun time. Momoa and Bautista are both enjoyable to watch, so putting them together in a buddy cop movie could be a winning formula. Sadly, it wasn’t.

Bautista plays it straight as a respected Navy SEAL, a good father, family man, the one steady presence in a family with a rocky past.

Momoa meanwhile slips into his usual role as the loud, unruly but fun uncle–his literal character in the movie.

The problem is that they don’t fit together at all. Usually these films feed off the differences between their two leads, but this is the wrong kind of different. Bautista plays it straight, like he’s in a serious action movie, Momoa crashes through every scene like a buffalo in a leather jacket. There’s no chemistry between them, no real humour that comes from their interactions or character beats to call back to. It’s like they’re in two totally different movies, and as they’re both big slabs of beef, there’s not even a physical distinction in the way they deal with bad guys.

It’s all a very by-the-numbers film, with the kind of predictable action movie plot that manages to be both generic and incredibly complicated at the same time, with some really bad CGI supplied for the action scenes. One long car chase in particular stands out for its poor effects.

Jason Momoa steals the show, and if it was just his movie, it probably would be a better time, and be allowed to take off in one particular direction. He’s fun to watch, chaotic, and is really the most important character in the story.

It’s one of those films that could be described as “OK”. It’s not unwatchable, it’s a bit of distracting fun, and as it’s free to watch on Prime, probably worth a look if you’re a fan of either of these actors. But it fails to truly commit to being either an over-the-top buddy comedy, or a serious action film, and just falls in the nondescript middle, that you probably won’t ever rewatch. It’s a shame, because a movie featuring these two talents could have been so much better.

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