Brand new super-hot release right now, like fresh fresh off the press! I mean, technically I think it might have come out yesterday, but I was gonna wait until movie night to watch it anyways, so tonight’s the night! We’ll double down on this one two - as it’s an Amazon original, and it appears that Squarespace has sunset the Amazon block - that little retail link at the end of my reviews I could attach to an associates ID and make a kick back whenever someone bought stuff using the link that in fact never ever really got used so instead I keep just paying for the site out of pocket as another one of my hobbies to assault my wallet. Anyways, there’s different assaulting going on in this movie, against bad guys and possibly your sense of humor - tonight, we tune in for The Wrecking Crew.

There’s some shady stuff going on as a guy is scurrying hurriedly about while being followed by some seedy types. He manages to sneak out a package in a mail drop box, but doesn’t get much further before getting hit by a van in a supposed hit and run - but we viewers know it’s more than that, because we have the setup and we get to see a bunch of blurry figures move in to loot his body after he’s dead. Cut to one of his kids - teaching some recruits to be able to stay underwater for long times when he gets the news - his dad is dead. Upon hearing that news, the wife calls his brother to let him know since the two aren’t exactly talking to each other. The other brother has his own issues though when the Yakuza come breaking in looking for a package from his dad. When the two unite back in Hawaii, things are about to get a lot more chaotic as the brothers butt heads and uncover a plot.

Actors do pretty decent. There’s plenty of known names in here - so you kind of expect that people wouldn’t do a bad job. That said, I could see the argument for thinking our military brother is getting outshined by his more outrageous (and potentially annoying) brother. I’m not sure how much of it is actor and how much is directions - I mean, they are technically playing exactly as it feels like they are written, but that said some of the emotional bits can be a bit hampered by it. The more important part is the chemistry in my opinion - as it does play out a bit like a buddy cop movie, even if only one is technically kind of a cop. The support characters do a pretty decent job as well - mainly hats off to the soldier boy’s wife character, but the entire batch of four or five other main support folk do a good job of bringing some energy and zest with them.

Characters can be surprising, but if you are looking for growth it’s not going very far outside of the two leads. That said, our bad boy lead has more growth potential, and actual A to B development that leaves him as feeling like he’s grown by the end of the movie. Our soldier brother feels more like his development comes from a point of guiding along the other’s for a key beat here or there - something more like exposition growth that builds out backstory more so then he feels like he’s grown as a person. That said, technically on paper he has changed by the end, so I guess that franchise with the car’s isn’t the only thing to push ohana. The villain doesn’t get much to drive them beyond greed, so I wouldn’t expect much there - although the who did it tracking down clues portion does provide plenty of mystery to mull over as the movie goes about.

I’m going to pull the humor card first, because I feel like it might be the most contested part of the movie. See, this thing can feel like it was written by teenagers - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on where you fall. Yeah, sure, I don’t remember any fart jokes in there, but you’ll get a ton of jokes about weenies and folks hurling insults back and forth, topped off by a heaping of language use. It might be a bit much for some, but it did get a good couple of laughs from me over the course of it, so at least for me it was a fine level of stupid that I could enjoy. There are a few sort of slapstick related jokes in there, but it’s mostly gonna be stupid things like “helicopter!” and “fat John Cena.”

The action is pretty decent when it crops up. It’s pretty modern in presentation, so you will get cuts and all that jazz but it’s largely not hard to follow. It does get… well, let’s say ridiculous. The big trailer-pitch action set piece scene probably results in like 30 random civilians getting blown up and nobody so much as bats an eye about it - but spectacle wise it’s great entertainment. Effects do get brought in to help sauce some things up, and although for the most part it’s usually just something like somebody getting shot by a gun or an explosion, you do also occasional get weaponized cheese graters and limbs broke or tore. There’s plenty of moments to make you wince a little from the impact - either a face hitting a wall or the more violent effects - so in that regard it’s largely a success - which is good, because I feel most will be coming for either the action or comedy. I will say there is one hallway scene that’s a bit of a callback feeling to Old Boy - but it does feel a little bit awkward at a few moments here. Maybe could have used a few more takes or some slight restructuring or something - cool idea, just didn’t feel quite as refined is all.

Audio is balanced fine. Plenty of line deliveries tie into the jokes, so it’s good that actors do a good enough job delivering stuff - and also why I’m not entirely sure that anything is necessarily poorly acted, as most the times I’d wonder it could just as easily be for the joke. Music is there, and largely just vanishes from my brain. There’s plenty of radio-play sort of music in there, and it’s not all bad, but it’s also not all my specific choice of listening entree. It can help with scene setting and feel however, so it’s not like it’s just entirely grabbed out of a hat and presented like it’s there because we listen to it all the time. For the thinking folk, there’s probably better stuff out there to watch. That said, there is a bunch about family and family-related trauma and healing, and I guess some about greed and preserving natural culture. There’s probably more if you wanted to look hard, but you know darn well I didn’t enter this movie with any notion that I’d have to activate a single neuron in my brain to think about it.

A decent little action flick with some jokes and a cast full of names or faces you might recognize. I had a good time with it, with some genuine highs and lows for most aspects. There was times it went for some emotion and I feel like it missed, and other times it worked pretty decent. Jokes and action are the same way - parts will excel and impress, making you wince and laugh, and other times you’ll feel a little ho-hum about it. Whatever the movie might lack, it still did it’s job of being fun enough I didn’t check out while watching it and I enjoyed my time with it. You can (at the time of me writing this) check the movie out on Amazon streaming video, and there’s assuredly worse stuff on there you could watch instead (I know, I’ve watched a bunch of those too!) but sometimes you just want that buddy cop shenanigans out of two mountain sized men that could blend in practically nowhere.

@IMDB

The Wrecking Crew (2026)