Liam Neeson, Sean Penn, Jennifer Garner and now John Cena all have one thing in common: kicking butt in a Pierre Morel movie.

Since the breakthrough success of the Neeson-led kidnapping drama Taken in 2008, the French director-cinematographer has made a name for himself in Hollywood by casting A-list actors in similarly dark and gritty action flicks. Penn starred in 2015’s spy drama The Gunman, while Garner played a grieving mother on a quest for vengeance in 2018’s Peppermint.

Now that Cena is joining the director’s action-packed cinematic universe with Freelance (in theaters now), Morel is uniquely qualified to answer the top question on audiences’ minds: If pitted against each other, which of these badass actors would win in hand-to-hand combat?

“That’s a tough one,” Morel, 59, tells PEOPLE with a laugh. “They’re all equal… I would not have them go against each other. The four of them would be quite something!”

Upon reflection, however, the filmmaker adds, “Maybe Jennifer Garner, actually.”

Alongside Alison Brie, Christian Slater and Juan Pablo Raba, Cena leads Freelance as a former special forces operative hired as personal security on what turns out to be a dangerous mission amid a military coup. Morel calls the wrestler-turned-actor, 46, “a beast of a man, and so precise and so sharp.”

In an imagined face-off between Cena and the other stars he’s worked with, Morel says, “John, obviously physically, can do many things. He would probably be the strongest one because it was his job before, he’s a wrestler, he’s a fighter.”

“But,” he continues, “Jennifer showed extremely combative skills when we shot Peppermint.”