Killer Elite

If there’s one thing that star Jason Statham is known for it’s straightforward anti-heroes that get caught up in balls-to-the-wall action set-pieces. With a pedigree that includes The Expendables, Crank, The Italian Job, The Transporter, and Snatch, it’s no surprise that even his “based on a true story” (emphasis on based) Killer Elite film contains plenty of larger-than-life action.



At first glance, in a movie industry riddled with remakes, some filmgoers might assume that Killer Elite, is actually a reimagining of the 1975 film, The Killer Elite, starring James Caan and Robert Duvall from director Sam Peckinpah (Straw Dogs). However, Stathams’s Killer Elite is completely unrelated to the earlier film and is actually an adaptation based loosely on the events detailed in Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ novel, The Feather Men. The novel itself, especially Fiennes’ claim that the book was “based on actual events,” caused plenty of controversy around the time of its publication - and continues to be a source of tension today. Is the film version an equally provocative action flick with compelling drama or just an excuse for Clive Owen and Jason Statham to beat each-other up?
There’s no doubt that Killer Elite is going to satisfy a lot of Jason Statham faithfuls as well as fans of practical effects-driven action films. However, even though there are a decent number of heavy-hitting action set-pieces, Killer Elite is a narrative mess that convolutes a pretty straight-forward plot with loads of bizarre character relationships and added “drama” in an attempt to elevate the film beyond a throwaway action experience.


The basic plot of Killer Elite is simple enough, contract killer Danny Bryce (Jason Statham) attempts to get out of the “game” after a job in Mexico turns ugly. That is, until his closest friend and mentor, Hunter (Robert De Niro) is captured by a rich Dubai sheikh. In order to free his friend, Bryce must succeed in completing Hunter’s assignment - to kill three British Special Air Service (SAS) agents responsible for murdering the sheikh’s three oldest sons in cold blood. Bryce quickly assembles a team and gets to work - subsequently drawing the attention of former SAS operative, Spike Logan (Clive Owen) who will stop at nothing to protect the soldiers.
It’s a pretty basic plot - until the film attempts to pull in a series of side stories, including government conspiracy, a secret society, and even a romantic through-line - all of which require on-the-nose and disjointed exposition that weighs down any potential for dramatic tension. Instead of a tightly-wound action adventure film with a bit of added political intrigue or compelling character relationships, Killer Elite lumbers along for 105 minutes - saddled with too much time spent as Statham stares out airplane windows (cue flashbacks) and Owen converses with greying bureaucrats.
It’s unfortunate because there are some genuinely fun character moments that shine through all of the anticlimactic drama - specifically any time De Niro is on screen. Not only is it fun to see the aged star in a role where he can genuinely kick ass, the veteran’s on-screen presence helps buoy some of the performances from his colleagues. Statham and De Niro, have an especially enjoyable connection and watching the two trade barbs or fight together is surprisingly fun (and believable). Sadly, the same can’t be said for the dynamic between Statham and Owen, whose scenes mostly amount to verbal pissing contests that sometimes result in the pair throwing each other around for a few minutes.

                    Jason Statham and Clive Owen as Danny Bryce and Spike Logan



The various “missions” are, for the most part, diverse and interesting enough to keep moviegoers invested - each of the contracts has to confess to killing one of the sheikh’s sons and Bryce has to make each death look like an accident. However, it can be hard to suspend disbelief from time to time - considering Bryce’s team is supposed to include some of the slickest killers on the planet. Davies (Dominic Purcell), often referred to as the Welshmen in the film, is enjoyable to watch but unbelievably clumsy for someone who is supposed to be successfully going head-to-head with SAS agents. Similarly, some of the more difficult to explain elements of the film occur off-screen, such as one of the SAS soldier’s confessions. These scenes are, for lack of a better term, cop-outs and, as a result, fail to pay off built up tension - instead of rising to the occasion and delivering believable and satisfying “in the moment” drama.
That said, the biggest problem is the pacing - which, coupled with the convoluted segments of the plot, rob the film of any narrative momentum. Killer Elite frequently jumps timeframes and locales - and as a result of various unfolding plot elements in the final act push out one anti-climax after another. Audience members will be nervous when they aren’t supposed to be or blindsided by terribly handled, and uninspired, twists that are poorly developed throughout the larger narrative. Despite a solid Statham-esque chase sequence mid-way through act three, the closing minutes ofKiller Elite fall pretty flat - not to mention fail to make good on all that time spent ruminating on competing political motives.
Fans of Jason Statham will no doubt have some fun with Killer Elite and there’s one show-stopping moment in the first Statham/Owen brawl that will certainly get a reaction from audiences, but for anyone looking for either an over-the-top action flick or a smart-witted political thriller, the film fails to live up to the sum of its respective parts. What’s left is a cartoony and messy narrative that is mostly style over substance - a similar criticism to the ones, coincidentally, that have been used in attempt to discredit the validity of Fiennes’ Feather Men tell-all and/or novel.

Abduction (2011) Movie Review

Think of Abduction this way: There’s the Bourne Identity, then way below that is Mark Wahlberg’s Shooter. Then there’s 50,000 feet of crap. Underneath that is Liam Neeson’s Unknown. Dig another 100,000 feet until you hit a liquid-y orange-and-brown ooze and there you will find Abduction, a movie so bad it shouldn’t be allowed to call itself a movie. It should be called bad performance art for troglodytic, subhuman Caucasian bed-wetting females with a predisposition for shirtless, roundhouse-kicking dildos. Comparing Bourne Identity to Abduction is like comparing Beyonce’s ass to Danny Devito’s: Sure, they’re both big, but one you want to tap and the other you want to shave and disinfect before you feed to stray dogs.

Put another way: Acne is more pleasant than Abduction.

There’s a reason Taylor Lautner was nearly replaced after the first Twilight movie: He’s not an actor. He’s a pair of abs attached to an inbred two by four. There are park statues with more range than Taylor Lautner. The kid is about as versatile as a blood clot and as charming as a yeast infection. According to entertainment news and junket headlines, Lautner is being groomed to be the next big action star, but that’s only because future casting directors have not seen Abduction. He can’t hack it. Granted, Hollywood doesn’t ask a lot of its action stars (see Arnold Schwarzenegger) but there is a minimum threshold to qualify, namely the ability to change facial expressions. Lautner has two looks: Stoic puffy face, and stoic puffy face with his nose slightly scrunched. He is so wooden that he makes Keanu Reeves look like Robin Williams on a coke bender. I’ve seen better acting on story boards.

In Abduction, Lautner plays Nathan, a mannequin head affixed to to a neck-less 200-pound brick shithouse. A senior in high school, Nathan has always felt out of place around people with the ability to change facial expressions. His presumed father (Jason Isaacs) is a hard ass who subjects Nathan to mixed-martial arts matches if he’s caught drinking, while his mom (Maria Bello) stands out of the way, nods lovingly and counts her money while daydreaming about staircase scenes with Viggo Mortenson.

Meanwhile, Nathan is also smitten with a classmate and next-door neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins), with whom Nathan is partnered with on an assignment that inexplicably involves browsing missing children websites. What Nathan doesn’t realize is that an evil Eastern European man set a trap for him by posting a kid photo of Nathan on the missing children website in an attempt to lure Nathan out of hiding because apparently the evil Eastern European (Girl with a Dragon Tattoo’s Michael Nyqvist) knew that Nathan would one day have an assignment in high school that asked of him to browse missing children’s websites. Obviously.

Believing that his parents are not who they say they are, Nathan does what any slow-bus dolt would do in that situation: He calls the phone number listed on the website. A few hours later, two henchman show up, kill his adopted parents, and blow up his house. Nathan, witness to his parents death, grabs Karen and runs.

Minutes later, a top dog at the CIA (Alfred Molina) illogically intercepts a 911 call that Nathan makes to report the death of his parents, but before he can convince Nathan to give himself over to the CIA, Nathan’s shrink (Sigourney Weaver) shows up with a bouquet of balloons and explains that the CIA shouldn’t be trusted, either. In fact, she says that the only person he can trust is her, the lady who unexpectedly arrived with a passel of Get Well Soon balloons and has been pretending to be his psychologist for the last decade.

John Singleton, who used up all of his talent 20 years ago on Boys n the Hood, takes an excruciating hour to set up Abduction, essentially enlarging the 30 second trailer into the film’s first two acts before an exposition dump that removes all of what little mystery there is. Long story short: The CIA is trying to get to Nathan before the evil Eastern European gets to Nathan because evil Eastern European intends to use Nathan to blackmail Nathan’s real father, another CIA Agent, into giving up a very important list of names in exchange for his son’s safe return. Nathan can’t trust anyone. So, he runs, and then in fine action movie tradition, he confronts (at a Pittsburgh Pirate’s game, no less).

I won’t deny that Lautner does have a talent for kicking the air, punching things, and running fast, but this is true of almost anyone you pull out of a martial arts class. I also won’t deny that he’s a well-sculpted robot, but this is also true of most K-Mart jean models. But Lautner has no presence; he’s a charisma vacuum who looks like he’s acting as a stand-in for Mario Lopez on a very bad Lifetime movie. You can take a bad story with bad dialogue and wrap it around a movie starring Stallone or Bruce Willis or even, in a pinch, Charming Potato. Those guys have, to greater or lesser degree, a commanding presence. But you can’t do that with Taylor Lautner: He only highlights how bad everything else is around him. And this is a Taylor Lautner vehicle: This movie only exists to provide a setting for Lautner to slide down glass windows and kickbox. Yet, it’s impossible to invest yourself in it when the lead actor looks like an embarrassed kid with his girlfriend who is trying to escape a room he accidentally farted in.

Abduction is as generic as store-brand ketchup, and while that might be true of most action films, Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers) continues his descent into made-for-television mediocrity by failing to bring anything to the film other than what cut-and-paste screenwriter Shawn Christian puts on the page. It’s a poorly paced thriller that, in an effort to keep its budget down, backloads most of the action sequences. The problem is, by the time they arrive, the audience — even those sympathetic to Jacob Black — have long since given up. Abduction is a mess; a poorly executed, atrociously acted nightmare of a slog.