From chases on boats to bust-ups on buses, the action and locations are fitfully engaging, but the story feels cobbled together and the dialogue is often painful.
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The rest of the characters...are equally unvivid, serving only to advance the vague plot through chunky reams of dialogue.
Solidly pro in overall packaging yet cliched, pedestrian and indistinct in specific contributions, this thriller never finds (let alone raises) its own pulse.
This really is a paint-by-numbers action movie with two good things going for it. Those are brevity — it’s only 93 minutes long — and immediate forgetability.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
There’s little here to conjure any excitement.
Dialogue is all-cliché, a decent cast get not much to go on (if Wonder Woman put Nielsen back on the map, this does her few favours), and even the action scenes have a rushed, unfinished feel.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
Although the reliable Cooper (taking over the role from Henry Cavill) and the rest of the cast...valiantly do battle against the thunderous score, they’re ultimately unable to pump up a dreary mission that fails to adhere to the most basic rules of audience engagement.
Because crime thrillers, nut-with-a-knife horror movies, combat films, Westerns and the like are so very familiar, you’ve got to raise the bar on those tropes and action beats just to surprise and impress us. Stratton is a special forces thriller that fails to do that.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Director Simon West aims for a kind of Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible feel, but he falls short in budget, star power and explosive spectacle.
Wholly useless, entirely harmless, Stratton would be good clean fun, if it was good or fun.