Killer Elite
Director: Gary McKendry
Year: 2011
Rating: 5.0
Maybe I have been watching too many assassin
films of late in which the killer is unbreakable but though this has all
the elements of a modern assassin film and Jason Statham, this left me only
moderately interested in the outcome. Sure there are plenty of fireworks
and impossibly over the top set pieces, but there were really no good or
bad guys to care about or even really understand why they are trying to kill
each other. It is a befuddling plot that makes no sense. And there is of
course a twist but only because films like this have to have a twist. It
has three big stars; Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro and though I
can watch De Niro peel potatos and Statham is a favorite, it felt like I
had seen them play these roles before. As one of them says near the end,
"It was all for nothing".
Danny (Statham) has retired from the assassin
business and moved to the outback in Australia where he meets a beautiful
rancher girl played by Yvonne Strahovski in one of those pointless thankless
female roles. He is a happy man but he receives a message that his mentor
and friend Hunter (De Niro) has been kidnapped by a Shiek from Oman. To free
him, Danny has to kill three ex-SAS soldiers who killed three of his sons.
And make them look like accidents. And get a filmed confession. Sure, why
not. How hard can that be. The three men are part of a secret society of
ex-SAS men and they come after Danny and two men he hired. Leading to mayhem.
Meanwhile, the beauty pines for him back in Australia and when she discovers
what he is doesn't even blink. A killer? Well, we all have to do something
to pay the bills. This supposedly is based on a true story. Sure, why not.
