‘Hobbs and Shaw’ on HBO: Let Jason Statham Be Funny All the Time!

Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is on HBO this weekend—specifically tonight at 8 p.m. ET—which has reminded me that Jason Statham is very funny, and directors really ought to let him be funny all of the time.

Case in point: Jason Statham is very funny in Hobbs & Shaw. The 52-year-old actor is best known as a serious, tough-guy, stunt-heavy action star in films like Crank and The Italian Job. But as Deckard Shaw—the older brother of the evil Owen Shaw, who seeks to avenge his brother’s death after Dominic Toretto’s crew kills him—in the Fast franchise, he’s not exactly a quintessential funny guy. At least, he’s not in 2015’s Furious 7. But when paired with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s Fast & Furious character, Luke Hobbs, in the 2019 spin-off film Hobbs & Shaw, Shaw lets some of that dry wit shine through. Sure, the Rock gets the biggest laugh lines—he’s The Rock—but Statham gets his fair share of pointed looks, eye-rolls, and quips.

A movie where Statham really shows off his humor chops is the 2015 Melissa McCarthy comedy, Spy. In a frankly inspired casting decision from writer-director Paul Feig, Statham plays Rick Ford, who is essentially a parody of every action hero Statham had ever played up until that point. While Melissa McCarthy’s character Susan Cooper is a competent but desk-bound CIA employee, Rick Ford is a hot-headed, foul-mouthed field agent who may physically be a badass, but when it comes to tactics and strategy, he’s clueless. Unable to accept that a woman could be a competent spy, he follows Susan around and inadvertently sabatoges her mission. But Statham is just so funny as the brass, loud-mouthed idiot that Rick Ford is, it’s not annoying—it’s just hilarious.

In my personal favorite scene, Rick Ford lists some of the impossibly impressive moves he’s pulled off as a spy, which include pulling shards of glass out of his eye, jumping from a high-rise building using a raincoat as a parachute, and reattaching his arm with his other arm (to which McCarthy, a bonafide comedic genius, responds, “I don’t know if that’s possible. I mean, medically.”) Statham’s comedic delivery is spot on—pausing for dramatic effect, and taking himself completely seriously at all times. The best part? Most of those are things Statham really has done in his other serious action films.

I don’t know if we’ll ever get a comedy role quite so perfect for Statham again unless Feig and Statham collaborate on another movie. (Hobbs & Shaw 2, perhaps?) But in the meantime, casting directors, writers, and filmmakers really ought to keep in mind that Statham can be hilarious when he gets the chance to be. We should give him that chance more often.

Where to watch Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw