When Jason Statham growls, “Trust me, I’m coming back for everybody,” what self-respecting hostage wouldn’t consider themselves as good as rescued?

J.Sta’s latest, “Mutiny,” is a “Die Hard” at sea that, thank to “Mesrine” director Jean-François Richet, uses that laybrinthine setting to great effect. From engine room to anchor well, our ex-cop/hero flees a bevy of bad guys just long enough to start picking them off, one by one, two by two and so on.

It’s a formulaic thriller, set in Bangkok and at sea, shot in London and Malta, slick on its surface but labored in its opening acts and eager to run off the rails in the finale.

There are fights that are brilliantly shot and cut together, and one or two that make you wonder what was left out — what did we not see — when this or that villain goes down. The star who used to choose his projects based on how brilliant the stunt coordinator was is more obviously doubled, here and there (outside that anchor well).

But hey, the ex-competitive diver turned action star is pushing 60. A little Mel Gibson/Stallone in Winter is to be expected

Statham is Cole Reed, ex-London cop (check him out, all stubbled up, in his bobby helmet) turned bodyguard for a Thai shipping magnate who treats him like “family.”

When his client is killed, Cole is framed and Cole is pissed. He takes the identity of one of the killers, an American crewman on one of the boss’s freighters, the MV Artemis, to see what really went down and who’s behind all this.

Danish actor Roland Møller plays the dastardly Danish ship’s captain. Annabelle Wallis plays the brought-on-at-the-last-minute third mate who, like Cole, tumbles across a shipping container packed with human cargo. And Adrian Lester plays the U.S. Navy skipper whose Oliver Hazard Perry frigate (a retired class) named “U.S.S. Hazard Perry” standing by and wondering what the hell’s going on with that container ship.

Salty viewers will note that the Artemis almost never seems to be in motion, and in one scene set astern seems to be going in reverse.

But the scripted problem solving is adequate — start a fire, sneak around in that favorite lazy thriller writer’s crutch, “the air ducts,” empty machine gun after machine gun, pistol after pistol, without counting the rounds used and rounds left.

And Statham still gives fair value, still delivers what his audience craves even if we, like he, aren’t as lithe, young and discriminating as we used to be.

Rating: R, graphic violence, profanity

Cast: Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, Chanell Kullar and Simon Kluth

Credits: Directed by
Jean-François Richet, scripted by Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis. A Lionsgate release.

Running time: 1:35