LaMonica Garrett gives off strong Michael Jai White vibes in the title role of the new American commando in Ukraine thriller “Man of War.” I LOVE Michael Jai White.

Garrett, of TV’s “1883” and “The Terminal List,” stands out like a bald, bemuscled bull in a china shop in this thriller about a “retired” commando who takes it on himself to rescue his aid-worker niece when the Russians invade Ukraine in the winter of 2022.

As Mike Conner, he’ll punch, stab, grenade and shoot-shoot-shoot the marauding Muscovites who’re hellbent on raping, pillaging and murdering their way through a former client state that has designs on joining the EU and NATO.

Yeah, it’s a straight-no-chaser B-movie, a commando with “special skills” and LOTS of them killing his way through a headline-grabbing war zone. But that topicality, with Bulgaria doubling for wartorn Ukraine — just spraypaint a “Z” on a Soviet era tank and you’re golden — and some pretty savage action sequences recommend it, even if no character, situation or flinty line of dialogue is remotely novel, new or surprising.

The first “I got this” comes after the “Hate makes you sloppy” in combat observation.

“I must say,” the Russian torturer/villain (Daniel Bernhardt) purrs, “I never knew much about people, until I took the time to take them apart.”

Conner gets the video call from niece Riley (Rosemary Yaneva) just as the Russians storm in. One call to his “old friend” (Jason Patric in the logistics and “support” role) gets Conner on a plane and into Kiev. where his “loud” local tour guide (Andrew Howard) is meant to get him to the combat zone to track down the niece with a trackable smart watch.

Russian commandos get in their way. Ukrainians might take them for Russian spies. And artillery makes no distinction in its victims, even if drones sometimes do.

Those loutish Cockney Brit commandos we meet early on are destined to return at an opportune time, and many a “good” guy is fated to get his own death scene.

Director and co-writer William Kaufman (“Shrapnel,” “The Channel,” “Warhorse One,”“The Brave”) is more of a one-trick-pony than an action auteur. This film’s relentless, repetitive last 25 minutes is one long shoot-our-way-out out of Kharkiv and that’s kind of a signature of his. But this isn’t “Heat” and he’s no Michael Mann. Stand-offs are resolved the same way more than once (Ukrainians shoot, from off-camera, abruptly wiping out Conner and his tour guide’s antagonists).

Garrett isn’t bad as the lead, Howard is more convincingly Ukranian than you might guess and Bernhardt makes a perfectly vile villain. Kaufman often finds a role for Patric, and in this case, the one “name” star of the film got to play his part in street clothes and sandals, always a cell-phone call/satellite image away from the action.

Introducing a little politics into this — with Conner repeating Putin/MAGA talking points — only serves the purpose of riddling them with bullet holes. And Conner can only complain about Ukranians saying they have “no time for prisoners” whom they execute in the hope that we forget we’ve seen Conner himself play the same game — one-shot-to-the-head of his defeated, wounded and disarmed foe.

The film’s overfamiliarity may be a selling point to those looking for combat film comfort food. You know what you’re getting from a Kaufman kill-em-all. But like every film of his I’ve seen, there’s a ceiling on what we can expect, and his imagination and skill set never ever punch through it.

Rating: R, graphic violence, implied rape, profanity, smoking

Cast: LaMonica Garrett, Andrew Howard, Linds Edwards, Rosemary Yaneva, Daniel Bernhardt and Jason Patric.

Credit: Directed by William Kaufman, scripted by William Kaufman and Paul Reichelt. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:51