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FEATURE IN FOCUS
ritain’s only authentic action star Bwith global clout, is finally – if
not entirely firmly – on the side
LAWAND
DISORDER
JASON STATHAM ON THE BEAT IN COP THRILLER BLITZ AS BRITAIN’S WELL ‘ARD ANSWER
TO ‘DIRTY HARRY’
of the law as Detective Brant, in Blitz, a film version of one of Ken Bruen’s best-selling thrillers about the edgy South London cop.
Jason Statham, 38, who first rose to fame via Guy Ritchie’s early films before stardom in his own right with, among others, the Crank and Trans- porter series of movies, heads a top cast that includes Aiden Gillen, Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Zawe Ashton, Mark Rylance and Luke Evans.
Talking about his role in the script
by Nathan (Moon) Parker about the
search for a psychopathic serial killer,
he says: “I liked the whole concept of having a chance to make a movie aboutaBritishcop. He’sbasicallyone of these Dirty Harry types.
“Brant has a certain moral com- pass. The essential thing that he’s looking to do is to take the criminal down, he might not do it in a way that people approve of, but at the end of the day he’s on the right side of the fence.
“At the same time he’s got a few issuesofhisowntogetthrough. It’s an interesting role for someone like me to play because I don’t normally get these dramatically-driven kind of ac- tion movies.”
The film marks a big step for Lion- sgate UK, the British distribution ‘arm’ of the eponymous US outfit. According to company head and Blitz producer Zygi Kamasa: “We always wanted to find a way of getting back into produc- tion. As Redbus, we dabbled in it – kind of co-produced films such as Bend It Like Beckham here.
“But there wasn’t really a strategy for it. What Lionsgate has done since they bought us four years ago is make us refocus more on global productions that we can make out of the UK, so Blitz is our first film with that ambi- tion. The idea is to make at least one or two productions like this a year.”
When he and his team were look- ing around for suitable projects, Ka- masa notes, “we couldn’t even found that many movies made about the
British police certainly none that had been strong theatrical movies.
“What we have here – and this is evident in Ken’s characters – is some- thing more cinematic and edgier than you usually find here. The characters have multi-layers, which is probably why we attracted such a strong cast. As well as a sense of Dirty Harry, I think it also has elements of an
LA Confidential about it with its multi-character storyline. But running through the middle of it all is a very strong murder story.”
Appropriately for a UK film whose aimistotakeontheUSatitsown game, the producers gave the directing shot to North London-born Elliot Lester who some years back had packed his bags for Hollywood.
After working as an assistant director before graduating to music promos and commercials, Lester finally made his feature debut with the award-winning Love Is The Drug. Blitz, just his second film, has now seen the ex-pat very much back on home soil and he obviously relished the
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