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. 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. Play 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. 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. 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. 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. Early on we see Joey and his homeless girlfriend Isabel separated during a shakedown by local thugs in a Chinatown slum.

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. 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. 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. A quick glance at the poster tells you this is a Jason Statham movie, but it’s not his usual action-heavy fare. This is a glistening West End teeming with immigrants seeking their golden-paved dreams, the kind of place where the poor are exploited by ruthless gangs (also largely immigrants), while the police turn a blind eye to prostitution, human trafficking, homelessness, violence and more. Like those two films, Hummingbird (known as Redemption in the States) presents an uncompromising vision of 21 st Century London.

Hummingbird film