Killer Elite

About a week ago, I decided to find out who the official actor of the Mindless Movie Marathon is. To do that, I took the list of movies we’ve seen (in theatres, or together on Blu Ray or VoD. Movies I saw by myself don’t count) and made a list of the top billed actors in them. Usually I went down to major supporting characters, sometimes minor ones. And I found out the actor who’s appeared in the most mindless movies has only appeared in three. I was a bit surprised, because I thought it would be four or five. There are a lot of people at two. Jake Gyllenhall was in Source Code and Prince of Persia. Gemma Arterton was in Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans. Sam Worthington was in Clash of the Titans and Avatar (although I’m not sure Avatar counts, what the all the CG making it almost a cartoon). Zoe Saldana was in Avatar and Colombiana.

Prior to this week, there were actually two actors who’ve appeared in three mindless movies each. Oscar Isaac has had minor roles in Drive, Robin Hood, and a supporting role in Sucker Punch. But the other one is … go on, guess … alright, it’s John Malkovich. He was the villain in Jonah Hex, had a major supporting role in RED, and a minor role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

But that all changed this week with Killer Elite. Jason Statham stars in it, as well as The Mechanic and The Expendables, making him the Official Actor of the Mindless Movie Marathon (to the surprise of absolutely no one).

Evan won the preview game this week with Battleship and one other one. We pushed on the Ides of March, and I got Haywire. Haywire’s being pushed as the female Jason Bourne, but it gives me bad vibes. Maybe because it’s been pushed back several months even though it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh and has a host of good actors (Michael Douglas, Ewan Macgregor, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender). We’ll have to wait until next year to find out if I’m right.

Anyway, Killer Elite opens (after three studio logos) with an assassination of some official in a car. Statham does the actual kill, but is thrown off by the presence of a child in the car as well. He tells his mentor (Holy Frick! It’s Robert DeNiro!) that he’s out, and then retires to Australia.

A year later (1981, according to the timeline I have in my head), he gets the mail and discovers plane tickets and a picture of his kidnapped mentor. Well, there go his summer plans. Statham jumps on the plane and rendezvous with a middleman who takes him to the kidnapper. The kidnapper (a sheik) wants three SAS members killed, but not before confessing to killing his sons. Statham’s to get the confessions, then kill the men to make it look like an accident.

After a failed escape attempt, he gets right on that, flying to Paris to meet up with his team. This is pretty much two brothers, including a wonderfully mustached Dominic Purcell (seriously, that thing is glorious).

Anyway, the rest of the movie is spent finding these targets, then planning out ways to kill them to make it look like an accident. Their methods are pretty ingenious, actually. One, they hit in the back of the head with a hammer that’s been coated in bathroom tiles, so it looks like the target tripped in the bathroom and fatally hit their head. Some drugs fake hypothermia for another target. Carefully manipulated car accidents happen. Good times all around.

Unfortunately, trying to find the SAS people raises some suspicions, which are reported to Clive Owen’s character, an ex-SAS officer himself. (Is half of England ex-SAS?) He’s part of a little known club that exerts light control on events to help shape their country. He figures out who’s being targeted, but his club gets word that they need to die for certain conspiracies to take root, so he goes rogue because his people’s lives are more important than whatever goals his club has (usually money).

So there are confrontations between him and Statham, between him and his club, between his club and Statham, and between Statham and all of his targets. And his team, just for fun. It’s a good thing Statham has such a hot girlfriend (Yvonne Strahovski) to make it all worth it.

A lot of people complained that this movie didn’t have a lot of action, but I disagree. It might not have the most action, but there weren’t that many long breaks from chases or fights. 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and most of that time is spent doing some useful detective work. Cool stuff.

Another thing I liked was the music. Not extraordinary, but exciting when it had to be. And it's always fun when a character from a favourite TV show (Chuck) gets a role in a movie, however small.

The movie is long. It feels like it has a tacked on extra climax, but I can understand why they did that, even if I don’t agree with it. I guess closure is a powerful motivator for some people. Anyway, I liked it. It’s not a theatre movie, but definitely a Blu-Ray. Good stuff all around. Plus, DeNiro has a scene near the end that he just OWNS. It’s one of the rare scenes in a movie where everything comes together perfectly. Actor doing awesome stuff, perfect camera work, great set up, fantastic execution. Just all around Bad Ass-ness.