Who could have predicted that “Lethal Weapon” would turn out to be one of the most influential films ever made? The film’s writer, Shane Black, probably guessed. He never lacked confidence.

The Prime Video movie “The Wrecking Crew” is another entry in that vein, complete with story beats familiar from Black’s first produced script (especially in the final half-hour) and an overall Blackesque vibe, especially in the dialogue. Dave Bautista plays the rock-solid family man, James Hale, a former Navy SEAL turned drill instructor who has a house near Honolulu, a beautiful and charming child psychologist wife, Leila (Roimata Fox), and two adorable kids. Jason Momoa plays the loose cannon partner, James’ half-brother Jonny, a long-haired, hard-drinking, impetuous cop on an Oklahoma reservation who is introduced getting dumped by his long-neglected girlfriend Valentina (Morena Baccarin) on her birthday.

They’ve been estranged for more than 20 years. But when their father, Walter, a sleazy private eye, gets killed in a hit-and-run accident while working a case in Honolulu, Jonny swallows his pride and flies to Hawaii for the funeral, setting up the inevitable reconciliation, plus lots of skillfully choreographed, sometimes slyly funny action sequences.

It’s all sprinkled with banter, some of it openly hostile, some profane and teasing but affectionate deep down, like stuff brothers would say to each other while roughhousing. Of course, the mystery turns out to be one more variant of “Chinatown,” involving a very sketchy real estate deal/land theft and intimations of a conspiracy that goes right to the top. Temuera Morrison plays Hawaii’s fictional governor, Peter Mahoe, who, of course, is part of the conspiracy. A governor doesn’t show up at the funeral of a bottom-feeding private detective that even his sons loathed unless he’s connected to the main story and the family guiding us through it.

Claes Bang plays real estate mogul Marcus Robichaux, an heir to a sugar fortune who hopes to get even richer from his crimes. Naturally, there’s a small army of security guys and henchmen for the brothers to punch, shoot, stab, and incinerate – a mix of city-roaming Yakuza foot soldiers (a band of whom attacked Jonny in Oklahoma, demanding a thumb drive his dad supposedly sent him) and a squad of gym-burly Caucasian dudes with quasi-military haircuts. And yes, there’s weird, repulsive, deranged chief henchman, Nakamura (Miyavi), a reptilian dandy who snorts cocaine off a drink tray at one of Robichaux’s glammed-out parties, then taunts James, who is posing as a caterer, right to his face.

What makes “The Wrecking Crew” worth seeing is what the cast and filmmakers do with the material. Simply put, this movie is better than its synopsis suggests, though not good enough to entirely overcome the familiarity of the component parts and the alternately jokey and sentimental tone (which is harder to pull off than studio executives seem to think). Some of the action is ludicrous, but most of it is modestly scaled. And the characters are written and performed in a way that makes them recognisably human.

Momoa and Bautista are two of the best actors to become movie stars by passing through the superhero factory, and they get a chance to prove it here, while still delivering what most viewers will expect: chases, shootouts, explosions, frat-house insults, moments of manly vulnerability, and a scene where the brothers get into a huge brawl. They’re convincing as the squared away but tightly wound older brother with a stable home life and the flamboyantly self-destructive younger brother whose adulthood has been warped by rage at what happened to them in youth. The brothers’ hellish childhood encompassed the murder of Jonny’s mother; Jonny’s awkward absorption by the Hale family; Walter’s chronic infidelity, which resulted in Jonny’s birth; and unstated but implied domestic abuse. Jonny has PTSD for sure, and it seems a safe bet that James has it, too.

It’s an indicator of the movie’s specialness that the most impressive scene isn’t the brother-on-brother street fight in pouring rain, but the aftermath when they sit together on the pavement, bruised and bloody, and talk about the sources of their hurt. Runner-up is the moment when the brothers embrace at the end of their mission, beaten and spent, and the mask of adulthood falls away, revealing the scared little boy who needed more love than he got and the older brother who failed to provide it.

Director Angel Manuel Soto is good at everything the movie requires, including quiet moments of character development that you don’t normally find. Although it looks backward to previous Hollywood hits, in all the ways that count, this movie is the future.