‘The Wrecking Crew’ Review — A Buddy Comedy That Loses Its Charm Beneath The Pointless Chaos

The thing about Prime Video’s new streaming film The Wrecking Crew is that the scenes between its stars have a certain energy and electricity when there’s comedic tension between the two actors. However, when the bullets start flying and the fists start swinging, that’s when the experience begins to feel labored. All that charm, swagger, and humor evaporate, replaced by overblown, yawn-inducing, and occasionally eye-rolling action set pieces.

The sheer amount of destruction and loss of life makes the film feel more like a video game than anything resembling real human interaction or behavior. Sure, this is an action movie, but the real key to the film’s success is the sense of family and community in smaller, more effective scenes. This all falls apart when the director turns up the heat, making The Wrecking Crew feel uneven in tone and style.

The story follows two estranged brothers, Jonny (Jason Momoa) and James Hale (Dave Bautista), who haven’t spoken in over a decade and couldn’t be more different. Jonny is a police officer, but also a loose cannon currently on suspension. His personal life is equally in shambles, as his girlfriend (Deadpool & Wolverine’s Morena Baccerin) dumps him after he thoughtlessly forgets her birthday. He also keeps speaking to her in Spanish, even though she’s Brazilian and fluent in Portuguese.

James, however, is very different. A disciplined Navy SEAL, he is stoic and authoritative, yet has no problem putting on an apron and cooking for his wife, Leila (Roimata Fox, very good here), and their children, Lani (Lilo & Stitch’s Maia Kealoha) and Kai (Josua Tuivaralagi). The divide between the brothers runs deep, rooted in the fact that Jonny is the product of their father’s affair. However, while the betrayal never permanently fractured their family, it represents a wound that has never fully healed.

All of that comes to a head when James is notified that his father has been killed in a hit-and-run. He doesn’t tell Jonny, nor does he have to, because a pair of Yakuza enforcers soon show up at his door. They’re demanding a mysterious package his father sent him, something Jonny knows nothing about. After fighting them off in a makeshift sword fight, James flies to Hawaii to tell his brother that he believes their father’s death was no accident, but murder.

I was excited for The Wrecking Crew. Sometimes you just want a big, goofy, fun action picture, with charismatic leads to make you forget your troubles. Not to mention, I love a trailer that juxtaposes an action film with a needle drop of Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together,” which hit a chord with me. The scenes of Momoa getting his hair braided by his neice is adorable, which made me think Momoa is destined to do a Kindergarten Cop sequel at some point before 2030.

The comic tension between the leads is fun, as is bringing Spider-Man’s Jacob Batalon, who plays a hacker named Pika, is fun, as the guys slap him around. There’s a real sense of buddy-comedy energy that triangulates among all the characters on the island. Frankie Adams, who plays Nani, needles the brothers in ways that lower their defenses.

Then there’s Roimata Fox opposite Bautista, whose chemistry and emotional strength form the soul of the film. Their dynamic, reminiscent of Eric and Tami Taylor, is a pleasure to watch. It’s rare for an actor to hold their own so convincingly opposite performers as physically and emotionally dominant as Bautista and Momoa, and Fox absolutely does.

However, the film begins to drag whenever it shifts focus to the criminal villains. Claes Bang once again overacts his way into a steady paycheck, delivering a one-note performance so cartoonish it feels fueled by unseen amounts of cocaine, with little justification. His connection to the family is obvious, predictable, and so surface-level that the entire plot exists merely to reunite the brothers. The thing is, they didn’t need it.

Those scenes feel like ridiculous CGI filler. While the sight of musician Miyavi, who plays Nakamura, taking a massive sniff of cocaine off a gun that looks like a giant silver hand cannon certainly gets the job done, everything else comes across as pointless. At several points, the Hale brothers dodge machine-gun fire that miraculously misses them, resembling divine intervention straight out of the opening scene of Pulp Fiction.

Later, a helicopter lights up a highway, resulting in countless civilian deaths with no consequences whatsoever. Do the Hales know they’re also supposed to serve and protect?

Trust me, I wanted to enjoy The Wrecking Crew badly, even rooting for it to overcome its obvious mistakes in the third act. However, the movie overplays its hand instead of sticking to what works. At its best,
Angel Manuel Soto’s film understands that connection but loses what matters most amid the chaos.

You can stream The Wrecking Crew exclusively on Prime Video starting January 29th!