There’s something about Jason Statham that sets him apart from your average killing machine. That the guy can actually act certainly helps, but there’s more to it than that: Statham has that unique ability to maintain his stone-faced demeanor in even the most ridiculous of circumstances, which is perfect because his characters are often called on to kill their victims in elaborately — often comically — brutal ways.
Vulture originally published this list in 2011, but Statham has racked up an even higher body count since then. In honor of his latest, this weekend’s Expend4bles, we’ve gone through Statham’s filmography and ranked our favorite kills. Here are the 24 least pleasant ways to be killed by Jason Statham.
Statham tosses you into your friend’s ax.
Dressed in scuba gear, Statham lies in wait at the bottom of your pool, lures you down, then chokes you to death.
Statham drops napalm on your car.
Statham stabs you in the neck with the slide of your own gun.
Statham sticks a snake-scope camera down your throat, then plugs up your nose so that you can’t breathe.
Statham drives an electrified cattle prod through your torso.
Statham slams you in the throat with a dinner plate, smashes you into a table, then leaps out a window with you, using your body to cushion his landing.
Statham sticks the pull-pin of a fire extinguisher in your face, then throws you from a bus and onto the street, upon which you are run over by a car.
Statham beats you and your friend silly with a long metal pipe, then crushes you under a car lift.
Statham leaps in through the windshield of your speeding truck, grabs your neck with his ankles, and throws you onto the highway.
Statham whacks you with a priest’s thurible to disarm you of your gun. When you come at him with a knife, he grabs your hand, uses it to slice off your accomplice’s hand and stab him, then turns it (your hand, still) to stab you.
Statham stuffs you through the porthole of a dry-docked boat, then knocks the boat over, crushing you.
Statham presses on your head until it goes through the bars on a broken door.
Statham harpoons you in the leg, snaps your neck, then uses you as a human shield.
Statham stabs you in the back of the neck, breaks your arm, then holds you in place while Jet Li snaps your neck with his foot.
Statham crushes your testicles with his bare hands, then jams a needle into your neck.
Statham drives his car into your train, beats you to a pulp, ties an explosive device around your wrist, and blows you up.
Statham hacks off your hand, then uses your own severed hand, which is holding your own gun, to shoot you in the head.
Statham breaks your arm and bends it back to stab your accomplice with your sword, then takes your sword and slices your neck open.
Photo: Warner Bros.
Statham drop-kicks you off a pier as a giant prehistoric shark leaps out of the water and eats you.
Statham disconnects your severed-but-still-kept-alive head from its life-support system, spits in your face, then soccer-kicks it into a pool.
Statham just stares at you silently, intensely, until you freak out and blow your own brains out.
Statham breaks your neck in midair as you both fall to your death from a helicopter.
Statham punches your head into a helicopter’s tail rotor.