A quick glance at the poster tells you this is a Jason Statham movie, but it’s not his usual action-heavy fare. Stathamphiles should file it next to his more toned-down canon alongside The Bank Job and Blitz, rather the testosterone-fuelled efforts like The Expendables, Crank or The Transporter series, with the Stath called on to do more than just roundhouse people’s heads off.
He plays Joey Jones, a former Special Forces soldier on the run from a military court-martial now sleeping rough on the streets with a dodgy haircut, stained anorak and a bottle of hard booze always close to hand. The details of his crime, committed while on duty in Afghanistan, are slowly revealed by flashback sequences throughout the film, with the military slang for surveillance drones providing the film’s U.K. title.
Early on we see Joey and his homeless girlfriend Isabel separated during a shakedown by local thugs in a Chinatown slum. Fortune favours Joey as his flight from the two hardmen sees him breaking into a luxury flat conveniently left vacant for three months by its high-flying occupant. Taking this as a cue to turn his life around, he ditches the booze, cuts off his lank hair (sterling work by the wig department here), changes into a tailored suit, and gets a job working for the Chinese mafia while looking to locate Isabel. It's all a little too conveniently contrived to ever make the plot feel believable which is a shame considering the grand ambitions of the writer/director.From here the film begins to resemble an urban retelling of Robin Hood, with Joey dishing out his ill-gotten gains to the Covent Garden homeless shelter that offered him refuge in his hour of need, whilst wreaking revenge on the thugs that separated him from his girlfriend using his particular set of skills, and - in one memorable scene - armed only with a kitchen spoon.
His Maid Marian comes in the unlikely shape of a nun who looks after the local homeless mission, and it’s the relationship between Joey and the waifish Sister Cristina that the rest of the film hinges on, so it’s lucky that there’s a bit of chemistry between the pair. Cristina, like Joey, is going through a bit of a “mad patch” and is suffering from a crisis of faith, buying tickets for the ballet, questioning her beliefs, and generally being very un-nun-like.
The relationship between Cristina and Joey is touching and offers up some entertaining scenes between the two, "I'm guessing you have psychological problems?" she naively asks Joey after he flips a table in her presence... how little she knows! As Joey gets closer to the truth about Isabel, his avenging angel mission takes a deadly turn and their relationship is never fully fulfilled, but a scene before Joey's final act of redemption offers a moving glimpse of the pair's strange unfulfilled relationship.
The casting of Statham adds a certain level of expectation from the audience, and it feels like the writer/director felt obligated to throw the action crowd a bone with the addition of a few choice fight scenes, but they seem out of place with the overall tone of the film. Hardcore Stath-heads may be a little disappointed to find this is a straight-up drama, and drama fans may be put off by the presence of Stath, so it’s a hard-sell whichever way you cut it.
That said, Statham is as effusively charming as ever, offering more screen presence than most modern leading men can dream of. It’s just a shame that people will come to the film expecting to see Stath kicking people’s heads off, but instead will have to make do with him saying “penises” multiple times to a nun. The supporting cast is fine with Polish actress Agata Buzek particularly striking as Cristina, and it’s just a shame Vicky McClure doesn’t get more screen-time as Joey’s long-suffering ex, as the BAFTA-winning actress is as impressive as ever.
This is a film that tries to tackle many “issues” (in inverted commas) but barely scratches the surface of any of them. In fact, it’s almost painfully hand-wringing at times, offering up naive solutions to many real-world issues that people on the streets of London face on a daily basis. Homeless? Don’t worry, a delivery of pizzas to a local mission will solve that. Alcoholic? Tipping booze down the sink normally does the trick. Really? There’s even a human trafficking scene casually tossed in for good measure, but it’s skated over so quickly that any attempt at a “message” is lost.
So, despite Hummingbird’s grand ambitions of being a drama with a socio-political message about immigration and crime, contrived plotting and a lack of scale gives the film a distinctly ‘made for TV’ Sunday night drama feel.
