On Netflix, the most watched action film in Brazil today

Action comedies maintain a captive space with the public. Homeric fights, chaotic chases and impeccably choreographed shootouts would provide even more enjoyment if accompanied by light sequences, introductions to silly jokes, but which would correspond to that bizarre logic. Characters who assume their heroic vocation, even though they soon fall into unfavorable circumstances, become popular, inspiring controversial, oblique feelings, which good interpreters know how to take advantage of. This is what happens in “Onda de Violência”, a misleading title for a cruel slapstick, developed from a good premise. Michael Hamilton Wright knows how to reinvent an old formula, mixing speed, humor and an anti-romance full of energy, composing a stimulating mosaic in the genre.

Pete is an in-demand hit man trying to bring some order to his crazy life. He starts attending group meetings with other workaholics, without, of course, saying anything that compromises him, a situation in itself full of amusing moments, which rise and fall as the film becomes more or less relevant. Wright and co-writers Christina Laughlin and Burton L. Warner make a risky but accurate bet on the omnipresence of the protagonist, who assumes his role as driver of the narrative, without forgetting the audience. Michael Jai White makes Pete a martyr, highlighting the shamelessness of his anti-hero, convinced that he has a purgative role in the filthy society that surrounds him. His self-confidence, however, experiences a setback when the gangster for whom he usually provides his services becomes uncomfortable with the therapy sessions that Pete attends with more and more pleasure, a discomfort that hides a particularly nebulous intention.

The purpose of creating a satire with a list of elements from blaxploitation, the aspect of cinema that spoke to blackness using black characters in the 1970s, loses strength in the second act, when the director focuses on the relationship between Pete and Mora, the platinum blonde who, by chance, is the daughter of his boss and new tormentor. This urgency to address different topics in an hour and a half makes “Wave of Violence” devolve into a game of cat and mouse that Wright doesn’t know how to solve, no matter how much Aimee Stolte surprises. The affinity between the two ends up alleviating the predictability on the verge of the outcome, when the gratuitous beating suffocates once and for all the moral dilemmas of Pete, a charismatic bandit-hero.