THE WRECKING CREW is, in some ways, what the world needs: a buddy action movie starring Dave Bautista (WRONG SIDE OF TOWN) and Jason Momoa (BULLET TO THE HEAD). Bautista sort of publicly wished it into existence, and the public agreed it should exist. The catch is that it went straight to the Evil Shipping Conglomerate Prime streaming service, so it’s arguable whether it really does exist unless it starts playing on cable (which is possible, since it’s already happened with their ROAD HOUSE remake).

It’s directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (CHARM CITY KINGS, BLUE BEETLE) and written by Jonathan Tropper (co-creator of Banshee and Warrior, showrunner of See, also with Momoa and Bautista). Also Matt Reeves (THE BATMAN, UNDER SIEGE 2) is one of the producers? That’s odd. Anyway it’s nothing substantial, but I liked it.

Bautista plays James Hale, a very serious Navy SEAL instructor in Honolulu. When he finds out his private detective dad Walter (stunt veteran Brian L. Keaulana) was killed in a hit-and-run he’s so unimpressed he only tells his wife Leila (Roimata Fox, Chief of War) in the middle of a couple other things, and then complains about the traffic when he went to identify the body. He doesn’t want to call his estranged half-brother Jonny (Momoa) about it, so Leila does, even though she’s never met him.

Jonny hasn’t been home in decades. He’s a cop on a reservation in Oklahoma, currently on suspension and enjoying his motorcycle, but not his girlfriend Valentina (Morena Baccarin, SERENITY), because she gets sick of his shit again and packs up and leaves again. Then some Yakuza attack him at his house trying to get a package they say Walter mailed to him. So what the hell, he goes to the funeral, and then what the hell, he starts investigating who killed Walter. He hated the man but he’s still sore that he never found out who killed his mother, so this becomes his replacement obsession.

Everyone acts like it doesn’t make sense when he says he wants to know who killed him. “It was a hit and run,” James says. Yeah, exactly, do you know what a hit and run is? I feel like that part needed a polish. But they reluctantly team up, they bicker (sometimes funny, sometimes not), eventually bond, etc. They find the thumb drive that seems to be in the middle of a conspiracy involving a rich real estate asshole who enjoys cultural appropriation (Claes Bang, THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY), a crazy yakuza who snorts a line of coke off of his pistol during a gun fight (Miyavi, KATE), and a local gangster played by action stalwart Branscombe Richmond (COMMANDO, THE HIDDEN, ACTION JACKSON, LICENCE TO KILL, CAGE, SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO, ACES: IRON EAGLE III, DEATH RING, NEMESIS, etc.).

I’m a big fan of both of the stars but I’ve started to realize that Momoa is not as funny to me as he is to himself. For example Bang’s character is named Robichaux and he repeatedly calls him “Robicocks.” But his success rate is higher here than in AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM from what I remember. He also gets his own comic relief sidekick in Pika (Jacob Batalon from the Spider-man pictures), a guy who’s good with computers who worked for their dad who he sort of forces to work for him now.

Bautista continues to confirm that he’s one of our great action actors. He’s taking most of this seriously, and not just for straight man purposes. Overall the movie leans dramatic, despite the wisecracks, and I appreciate that. These are half brothers who become fight brothers in one of the best scenes, when they get fed up with each other and have a surprisingly brutal fight in the rain, then sit on the pavement and talk through their issues. It brings out the best part of both actors: the ability to be big macho men revealing their emotional vulnerabilities. I’m a sucker for that and maybe that’s why I like these guys so much.

There’s a real attempt to set it in a Hawaii different from what most mainlanders know. There’s plenty of natural beauty, but also scenes set in Hawaiian homelands and urban Honolulu. Some of it (I’m not sure how much) was filmed in New Zealand, though, and many cast members are from there. But it’s a really appealing cast, especially the women of the family, including their cousin Haunani (Frankie Adams, VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, MORTAL ENGINES). James has a daughter played by live action Lilo from LILO & STITCH Maia Kealoha. I noticed that his son Kai (Josua Tuivaralagi) wears Bad Brains and Operation Ivy t-shirts, and I thought that was kind of cool because he’s not much of a character but the costuming implies a life and interests outside of his scenes. I read that as a teenager Soto was in a punk band called Los Cheveres, so maybe it’s autobiographical.

The great Temuera Morrison is also in this. He plays the governor, a close family friend who speaks at the funeral. You may or may not guess the same thing I did about what that might mean for his role in the story.

I’ve barely mentioned the action, but don’t worry, it’s very good! Not, like, JOHN WICK level, but not too many miles off. The kind of movie where there’s a well executed homage to the OLDBOY hallway fight but also some exploding car stuff. Second unit director/stunt coordinator Jon Valera has worked with Momoa on many things (including AQUAMAN) but also did some of the choreography for THE TOURNAMENT, NINJA ASSASSIN, HAYWIRE and MAN OF TAI CHI. The fight choreographer is Akihiro Haga (KATE, Red Ranger in Power Rangers Dino Charge) and the fight coordinator is Anthony Rinna (Andy Le’s stunt double in SHANG-CHI). Interestingly they got Matt Flannery, cinematographer of MERANTAU, THE RAID and HAVOC, and editor Mike McCusker (James Mangold’s guy going back to WALK THE LINE).

So it’s well shot and edited, there’s some good gore, and most importantly the choreography has the level of detail I love. When Jonny fights off home invaders while wearing only a towel they manage to wreck just about everything, he punches through a door into a head against a wall, a window gets broken and the intact edges are later used as a weapon, that sort of thing. I don’t like that people continue using cheese graters as weapons since EVIL DEAD RISE made such a splash that way, but it’s kinda funny that he uses it to destroy a Yakuza tattoo, so it hurts in more ways than one. Robichaux has a Bruce-Wayne-in-BATMAN-1989 style display of weapons from different cultures and yes, when a case gets broken the yakuza Nakamura reaches in to pull out a cool sword, and then James finds something even more impressive.

There’s also a huge chase involving a bunch of cars and a helicopter. It mostly reminds me of the classic tank chase in FURIOUS 6, but also it’s one of the few movies that seems possibly influenced by the crazy detailed practical/digital hybrid car wrecks in Michael Bay’s 6 UNDERGROUND. FX-wise they’re definitely not as real looking, but they have a similar sense of over-the-top mayhem.

There’s a weird disinterest in (as far as I could tell) making James fight like a SEAL, though he does eventually have to jump into some water. One of his fights is set to a RZA song with the chorus “Bangin’ on your head like a drum.” I read that indeed it was recorded specifically for the sequence, so I assume ol’ Brass Body called up his friend The Man With the Iron Fists and asked for a favor.

I don’t really expect this to rank very high in my best action movies of 2026, but it’s pretty solid entertainment, an effective mix of formula and personality, a good use of its stars, also I’m glad to see Bautista in a movie with a little more production value than his recent post-apocalyptic ones (that actually played theaters!). I’m glad THE WRECKING CREW somewhat exists.