Americans are notorious for doing things bigger - although not necessarily better. The perfect example would be that of the world of wrestling; whereas you might bear witness to an afternoon of inexcusably overweight men slapping their flab about at Preston Public Hall, American wrestlers, sporting impressive physiques, put on their brutal panto in vast arenas in front of thousands of fans.

It’s no wonder that the sport has elevated its biggest stars to the screen, by way of Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson and John Cena. After all it’s difficult to imagine Big Daddy in the Fast and Furious franchise, or Giant Hastings in the DCU.

This film finds Cena stepping away from being the Peacemaker, playing an ex soldier in a new role as bodyguard.

Now working as a lawyer is Mason Pettits (Cena). It’s not a job he particularly enjoys, but he has a family to support so doesn’t make a fuss. It’s quite a career change for him, as he used to be a member of the Special Forces, until he got badly injured during a mission to assassinate a dictator in Paldonia.

One day his path crosses that of an old comrade, who is doing pretty well running a private security company. It turns out he has a job for him, a simple protection detail, babysitting a disgraced journalist, Claire Wellington (Alison Brie), who has the opportunity to get her career back on track with an interview with Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba), who just so happens to be the same dictator Mason was sent to kill all those years ago.

It’s an interesting proposition, one that mason finds he can’t refuse, especially for the money he’s getting. Besides, what can go wrong looking after one journalist?

French director Pierre Morel’s directorial debut was the impressive action flick District 13. It was enough to give him a shot in Hollywood for his next project, which was a certain action film starring Liam Neeson called Taken. The rest is history, or it was for Neeson at least, not so much Morel.

Since then he’s struggled to match that kind of success, and sadly that isn’t going to change with his latest effort.

It is a film that is woefully by the numbers, which is disappointingly generic with its bodyguard premise. Can you believe that Cena and Brie’s characters don’t get along initially, but soon warm to one another? Yes, yes you can.

And the story of a country in the midst of a political coup is lame at best, with the whole thing seemingly cobbled together on the fly just as a starring vehicle for Cena.

The one thing it has going for it are its three stars, who all deserve better than this. Cena is solid as ex-army, who despite having a bad back can still look after himself – and others; Brie, who has a wrestling connection of her own having starred in the entertaining show GLOW, about a group of female wrestlers, fulfils the necessary requirements of a damsel in distress; but it’s Raba who shines as the enigmatic dictator with a sharp eye for fashion.

But even their brave performances can’t do anything with the pitiful material they have to work with, that is so formulaic nothing can save it.

Morel doesn’t do much wrong from his place behind the camera, keeping the pace fairly zippy, and the sunny locale proving to be a nice distraction, but it still falls way short of his previously set standards.

Hopefully it’s just a dent in Cena’s future work prospects, as he’s already ticked off comedy and action with Peacemaker on his CV, and there’s no reason why his career can’t go in a similar trajectory to that of his fellow ex-wrestler The Rock, as long as the work offered to him is better than this, proving that he is indeed the right man for the job.