Release Date: 9/23/2011
Danny (Jason Statham) is an ex-Special Forces operative, now contract killer. Danny is the protégé of Hunter (Robert De Niro) an aged soldier-of-fortune now being held captive by a dying Arabian Sheikh, ultimately luring Danny back into the game. In order to free his mentor, Danny and his team of mercenary thugs must take out those responsible for the murder of three of the Sheikh’s sons. But of course, there’s a catch: Danny and his motley crew must video-tape the men’s confessions and their deaths must appear to be accidental to avoid any suspicion. Queue the mindless banalities.
Reluctantly accepting the assignment of certain death – aren’t they all – Danny ends up toe-to-toe with the cunning one-eyed assassin Spike (Clive Owen) who doubles as the tip-of-the-sword for a secret military society known as The Feather Men. Meanwhile, Danny gets some tender “action” in the likes Anne (Yvonne Strahovski), who appears haphazardly throughout the story. As beautiful as this dame is, her appearance in the film is all for naught, for at no time was I sure of what to make of their relationship. Her romance with Danny was too contrived and all but transparent. To say all stories require a love interest is a bit of a misconception. However, if you’re going to throw one into the mix, at least make it worth my while.
Jason Statham teaming up with Robert De Niro to take on Clive Owen – sounds like a match-up made in tough-guy heaven. I have to admit, if you’re going to make an action movie, I suppose the idea of having three top-tier badasses headlining your film would be a promising start. Especially when one of those is a screen legend. But Killer Elite not only proves that theory wrong, it certainly doesn’t help your cause when you edit together a half-ass script filled with characters who undoubtedly utter one-liners as cliché as their personas, and run-of-the-mill action sequences replete with scissor fights, car chases and meaningless explosions. Wait, this wasn’t directed by Michael Bay, was it? Killer Elite is nothing more than a loud piece of garbage.
Shockingly enough, Killer Elite is based on a book and if you can believe it, inspired by a true story. The Feather Men by Ranulph Fiennes sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than the movie in my opinion. First time screenwriter Matt Sherring manipulates the book’s premise and tells it from the opposite perspective. The book tells the story from the point of view of the vigilante committee and their 14-year struggle to capture a band of contract killers known as the Clinic, who murdered four former British soldiers. Seems like Mr. Sherring’s script should have kept to the script, eh? The same can be said for first time director Gary McKendry, who offers nothing unique or innovative. Coming from a reputable film school, one would have thought McKendry learned one of the cardinal rules of filmmaking. Violence only truly works when it’s for the betterment of the film. Not just for the sake of violence.
Of the 15 minutes of screentime his character gets, all Bobby De Niro really gets to do is fire a machine gun once and flash his “I’m gonna fuck you up” smile a few times. He isn’t bad but there certainly isn’t much to like. Statham merely plays his character like he’s done in other familiar movies like The Mechanic or The Transporter. It’s nothing new. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does get old after a while. Statham appears to be in dire need of breaking free from the same old action hero shackles he’s been locked up in his entire career. Mixing films like Snatch or The Bank Job into his repertoire wouldn’t hurt every once in a while. At least in those films he actually gets the opportunity to act a little. Clive Owen ends up being the only one who offers any amount of range. But he’s far from reaching the level of acting we’re used to. And as we already know from likes of Children of Men, he has a lot more to offer us. Killer Elite is an action movie that tries too hard to be something it’s not. It attempts to combine the raw violence of an action movie – the same drab crap we’re used to seeing Jason Statham in – with a legitimate exploration of the shadowy world of international intrigue.
What you’ll find completely missing from Killer Elite is what gives Snatch, The Bank Job or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels their greatest distinction: a methodical build-up of action, suspense and tension (in proportionate amounts of course) that completely engrosses the audience into what should become a complicated con/heist/job. Here we find none of that. So if you’re going to venture out to take a chance on this movie, I think it’s best for you to do so with the lowest of expectations as possible. Killer Elite is a movie that genuinely wants to be good, but falls well short of its target. And given the intriguing source material, it could have been a whole lot more. Killer Elite is an undistinguishable duplicate that we’ve seen an innumerable amount of times, and perhaps that’s even worse than being branded as WHACKED.
IMDb: N/A
Rottentomatoes: 60%
Movie Wiseguys: 4/10
