Nerd Movie Reviews

Killer Elite Movie Review

Neither killer nor elite.

Before I get into this movie, can I say that I wish Hollywood would get over the idea that parkour is still cool.  Sure, it’s fun to watch idiots jump off buildings in a Darwinian attempt to improve the human race, but in movies, when we know there are all kinds of wires, safety bags, and, most importantly, stuntmen, all it does is remind us that what was cool in 2004 is lame in 2011.  Hollywood has only itself to blame, as years of quick edit movies and television has given America the attention span of a three year old, and expecting us to like something even six months after it was cool is ridiculous.  (I do all my own stunts image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)

Anyway, Killer Elite.  The trailer was amazing.  Robert DiNero, Jason Stratham, and Clive Owen in an action packed Bourne Identity-esque assassination movie?  How could that go wrong?  Unfortunately, the only thing they kept from the Bourne Identity was the horrible quick cut action scene editing thing that annoys me so much, as it means you can never really follow the fights (normally I would say this is due to the actors not being coordinated enough to do a single punch at a time, but I thought Jason was an experience action star).  The story is ass, Robert DiNero spends most of the movie looking and sounding like a drunken homeless man, Jason Stratham’s character doesn’t seem motivated to continue breathing, much less do any action stuff, the romance story was crowbarred in so strongly they bent it, and a huge piece of the basic premise behind the story I found disturbing on a serious level.

What do I mean by that?  Basically Jason’s character Danny is being blackmailed into killing three men.  Who are these three men?  Dangerous crime lords?  Small country oppressive dictators?  Ruthless corporate heads who advance themselves through the immoral exploitation of the little man?  No.  They are dedicated British SAS military officers who’s only crime was obeying their orders.  Sorry, but I think this “Dark Horse Hero” trend in movies has just jumped the shark.  You want to root for Danny, but he is killing innocent men.  The so called “villain”, Clive Owen as Spike, is an ex SAS man who only wants to protect his fellow soldiers yet is painted as the evil antagonist.

Anyway, the story.  Danny starts off as a hit man in Mexico, but decides to get out of the business when he comes close to killing the little girl of the man he just shot in the face (in front of her).  I guess Hollywood can recognize a limit after they bulldoze right past it.  He retires to Australia where he starts an awkward romance with all the chemistry of mixing dirt and water to get mud.  Meanwhile, his mentor, Hunter (I don’t want to be a party pooper, but Hunter was the name of Brock Sampsons mentor in the Venture Bros.  Can you guys even try to be original?), the great Robert DiNero, got himself kidnapped by an Arab sheik for the crime of not killing the SAS men who killed the sheik’s sons (in case you were thinking that maybe the SAS men were out of line, in three separate flashbacks they showed the death of each son and in each case they were armed).  He is going to be executed unless Danny completes the job.  Unfortunately he is only given the name of one of the men, and has to get help trying to suss out who the other two are.  That tips off Spike, who works with “the Feather Men”, a cabal of ex SAS officers turned businessmen who work to make sure the ex SAS men are all protected.  He is the only character worth anything, and he sets out to find Danny and save the lives of his compatriots.  Assassin chaos ensues.  Stuff gets blown up, innocent men get killed, and in the last 20 minutes of the movie the story, which until then had been so linear it looked like they used a laser to align it, takes so many turns and convolutions it ended up looking like someones small intestine.  I thought about it all day and am still not sure what the hell was going on.

The stars.  Robert DiNiro.  One star.  Clive Owen’s character was actually kind of cool.  One star.  Spy movie.  One star.  Decent action, at least as far as the gun play goes.  One star.  Decent special effects with minimum CGI.  One star.  Set mostly in England, which I kind of like.  One star.  Total: six stars.

The black holes.  Except for Spike, there was no sign of a motivation from any of the character to do anything, including the peripheral characters like the British government.  One black hole.  Bad romance.  One black hole.  The story was stupid simple for the first 80% and then stupid complicated for the last 20%.  One black hole.  The story was written like the writers all had accounts at Unnecessary-Flashbacks-R-Us and they were having a two for one sale.  One black hole.  A complete misunderstanding of what insulin is and how it works (I am a type I diabetic and should know).  One black hole.  Somehow Danny sneaks into a high security SAS base, joins a huge unit of soldiers, and walks out with them on a maneuver, and none of them ever say “Hey, who are you again?”  One black hole.  For some reason Jason Stratham never, ever shaves, even when he is sneaking into a hospital to disguise himself as a doctor or into a military base disguised as a soldier.  He must have the five o’clock shadow thing written into his contract.  One black hole (speaking of guys in need of a shave, Robert DiNero looked like a bad Santa Claus for a lot of this movie.  I won’t give them a black hole for it, but still).  The sheik says he wants the British to know that the war isn’t over and he wants to make an example of the SAS men, then orders Danny to make their deaths all look like accidents?  One black hole for stupid script writing.  The whole quick cut bad fight choreography thing.  One black hole.  The victims were pretty much undeserving of death in any way.  One black hole.  Total: ten black holes.

So four black holes.  I don’t know.  If you like Jason Stratham go see it.  If you like Robert DiNero don’t go see it.  It had some entertainment value.  Just not a ton of it.

By the way, I’d like to tangent off a little and talk about something related to this movie but more related to nerd dating and my current lack of success in it.  In this movie Jason Stratham enjoys an awkward and stilted love interest with a hot girl (Yvonne Strahovski).  I think a lot of that ended up on the cutting room floor, but I noticed that during the course of this film Jason never ever seems to say more than five words to her at a time.  There is no easy banter, no sharing of feeling, none of the crap that women claim to want from a relationship.  I thought back to every other Jason Stratham film I have ever seen and realized that he pretty much does the same thing in all of them.  I guess if you’re good looking enough you don’t need to do any of that pesky personality and relationship stuff, and if you aren’t all the being witty, caring, funny, interesting, having a cool t-shirt selling website, and writing a detailed and well thought out movie review blog means diddly.  Women, you can collectively bite me.  Not that I’m bitter.

Meh.  I’ll feel better tomorrow and probably apologize.  Don’t listen too much to me when I am like this.  Speaking of bitter, I’m off to see Abduction and expect it to suck like the world’s biggest vacuum cleaner. Thanks for reading.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

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