Jason Statham's Action Thriller From 4 Years Ago Was So Good, No One Realized It Was a Remake

From starting off in gritty British gangster flicks to starring in some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, including Fast and Furious, The Meg, and The Expendables, Jason Statham has established himself as one of the industry’s most recognizable action stars. Behind the camera, Guy Ritchie has experienced a similar career trajectory. In fact, the pair’s paths are more closely linked than you may realize.

Jason Statham’s first movie and Guy Ritchie’s directorial feature debut were both the 1998 British crime caper Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It was a critically acclaimed indie success that earned over 20 times its $1.35M budget (via The Numbers). They then went on to work together on Snatch, which kept Lock, Stock’s winning blend of dark British humor and chaotic exploration of the country’s criminal underbelly, but brought in Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro.

The duo have now worked on a total of five movies together. Their highest-earning project is 2021’s Wrath of Man, which is also their bleakest and most brutal. It was a hit with audiences, earning an impressive 90% on Rotten Tomatoes‘s Popcornmeter. What many people don’t know, though, is that it’s loosely based on the 2004 French movie Cash Truck.

‘Wrath of Man’ Is Based on a 2004 French Thriller

Cash Truck (a.k.a. Le Convoyeur) is a 2004 French action thriller directed by Nicolas Boukhrief. Like Wrath of Man, the story revolves around an enigmatic character who joins a money transit company following a spate of armed robberies at the firm. Both movies introduce this character as an apparently ordinary person looking for work, only for his true motives and personal connection to the company to gradually come to light as the story progresses.

While both share the same premise and tell essentially the same story, their tone, structure, and execution wildly differ. Cash Truck focuses more on psychological thrills while Wrath of Man is a stone-cold revenge flick. The most immediately noticeable difference between the two, though, lies in their structures. Cash Truck adopts a traditional, linear narrative, in which the mystery slowly unfolds before the viewers’ eyes. Guy Ritchie, on the other hand, throws viewers back and forth in time to replay a pivotal heist moment from three entirely different perspectives.

The differences between the two don’t end there. While Cash Truck offers a bleak, melancholic study of a fragile, grieving father, Wrath of Man is driven by Statham’s portrayal of a hyper-masculine, unstoppable force of violence.

Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham Are Operating Outside Their Comfort Zones

Wrath of Man trades the witty banter, gallows humor, and frenetic editing found in Ritchie’s older work with Statham for a slow-burn, almost clinical aesthetic built around brooding atmosphere and escalating tension. Instead of chaos and irreverence, we’re treated to bleakness and brutality. The result is an uncompromising masterclass in cold-blooded suspense.

It’s not just Ritchie’s direction that subverts expectations. Statham’s familiar action persona is elevated with this darker, more complex, and emotionally driven story of ruthless retribution. Gone is his cheeky charm and boyish bravado; here Statham is cold, calculated and restrained. Exuding a dark and sinister aura, he ditches his trademark quips and playful deadpan sarcasm for a silent, stoic presence, acting as a borderline psychopathic force of pure vengeance.

Both movies are good in their own right, but Ritchie and Statham take the foundation of a great story and reimagine it so uniquely that it becomes an entirely different entity, one that sits among their finest output. Their take is so different from the source material that one would be forgiven for not realizing it’s a remake — even having seen both movies.