‘The Wrecking Crew’ Review: Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista Smash Their Way Through a Throwback Action Movie

What does a good action movie need? Solid set pieces, convincing chemistry between its leads, a halfway clever script, and a plot that more or less makes sense. The Wrecking Crew has all of that—except, perhaps, the last part. Still, it more than makes up for it by pairing two mid-tier action stars (mid in popularity, not in sheer physical mass) in a no-nonsense demolition derby of a movie that, in another era, would have opened wide in theaters instead of landing straight on a streaming platform. Times change. What might once have been a box-office bruiser starring Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista now settles for a living-room release.

Directed by Puerto Rican filmmaker Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), the film’s main asset is its two charismatic human tanks, playing estranged half-brothers who haven’t seen—or spoken to—each other in years. The opening scene lays out the reason for their reunion with elegant brutality: in a long, winding tracking shot, an older man walks through downtown Honolulu, drops an envelope into a mailbox, and is promptly run over while crossing the street. We soon learn he was the father of James and Jonny Hale, two Hawaii natives whose long-standing family rift will, inevitably, be unpacked as the story goes on.

James (Bautista), the older brother, is a buttoned-up Navy SEAL stationed in Hawaii, married, with two kids and a firm belief that his estranged father died in a simple accident. Jonny (Momoa), on the other hand, is a hard-drinking, chronically irresponsible cop living in Oklahoma. He immediately smells something fishy—especially after someone tries to kill him too, in a nicely staged action sequence—and decides to fly to Hawaii to dig deeper, partly driven by unfinished business from his past. Their reunion is volatile, loud, and physical, but as anyone who’s ever seen a buddy movie can guess, the investigation eventually brings them together. Punches first, bonding later.

Despite sharing its title (and nothing else) with a 1960s spy film, The Wrecking Crew follows the classic buddy-movie template popularized in the ’80s and ’90s: two wildly different personalities forced to team up for a common cause. The twist here is that, physically speaking, these guys are basically the same model. As one character jokes, “It’s like The Rock had sex with himself and had twins”—one of many self-aware gags sprinkled throughout the script. Personality-wise, though, they couldn’t be further apart. Setting aside their emotional baggage—and their very literal fistfights—they join forces to tear down a criminal organization involving yakuza and local rackets run by a shady businessman played by Claes Bang (The Square).

Plot, strictly speaking, barely matters. It mostly exists to string together a series of action sequences that Soto stages with surprising flair, a strong sense of visual rhythm, and plenty of nods to Asian action cinema. The Wrecking Crew is part buddy comedy (snappy one-liners, constant misunderstandings), part family-inflected police drama, but at heart it draws heavily from the grammar of Asian action films—from John Woo to Park Chan-wook, with a detour through countless bone-crunching martial-arts franchises.

Among today’s crop of muscle-first movie stars (The Rock, John Cena, Alan Ritchson, Vin Diesel, and the many heirs to the Schwarzenegger throne), Bautista and Momoa stand out for their likability and their ability to balance heavier roles with lighter, more playful ones. Here, they click nicely. Supported by Temuera Morrison, Japanese rocker-actor Miyavi, Morena Baccarin, and Stephen Root in secondary roles, the duo manages to carry the film’s steadily escalating absurdity. The violence does get pretty extreme at times—a friendly warning for parents watching with younger kids—but it rarely goes beyond genre expectations.

Even when the central investigation completely loses any semblance of logic, the movie keeps chugging along thanks to its action set pieces, including one blatantly inspired by Oldboy and a high-octane car chase that packs serious punch. The visual effects are mostly unobtrusive, and the sheer size of the protagonists helps sell moments no normal human could survive for more than thirty seconds. In the end, Momoa and Bautista may well be the film’s most effective special effects—making The Wrecking Crew a perfectly serviceable, unapologetically meat-and-potatoes action flick.