As the big-budget-for-home-streaming spectacular requires the Aussie star to do lots of Bourne-style clambering on rooftops and John Wick-esque close-quarter gun play there's not much time for character development.
So to give the killing machine some emotional heft the scriptwriters have resorted to the laziest of devices - the tortured flashbacks of the dead kid.
I thought, or perhaps hoped, Jason Statham had killed off the redemption-seeking, grief-stricken action hero with his monologue in Melissa McCarthy's espionage spoof Spy.
But here it's the over-exposed shot of the carefree kid on the beach that leads ex-special-forces-patriot-turned-cynical-mercenary Tyler Rake to accept what sounds like a suicide mission.
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