Review: 'Wild Card' Starring Jason Statham, Michael Angarano, Milo Ventimiglia, Anne Heche, Sofia Vergara, And More

Jason Statham movies come with certain, modest expectations. "Wild Card," in which Jason Statham plays a character named Nick Wild, only adds to those expectations. And so, it's a bit baffling that this second attempt (the first is a mostly forgotten 1986 Burt Reynolds vehicle) at bringing William Goldman's novel "Heat" to the big screen — adapted by the legendary screenwriter himself — seems uncertain what to do with the star, or the material. Trying to find a middle ground between an action packed Statham vehicle, a '70s style mood piece, and a '90s era character-actor packed crime tale, "Wild Card" is not surprisingly an unsuccessful marriage of those ill-fitting genres that strains to fill the already meagre, barely ninety minute runtime with anything of substance.

"...do not waste the audience's time. Bring the Inciting Incident into the story as soon as possible," screenwriting guru Robert McKee told Storylink in 2009,...