← Back to Reviews
in
Killer Elite (McKendry, 2011)
It's probably not fair, but anytime I see that Jason Statham is in a movie, I know I'm probably in for something other than groundbreaking cinema. I suppose that makes me a cynic.
Killer Elite is the directorial debut of Gary McKendry and adapts the "true story" of Ranulph Fiennes' 1991 book "The Feather Men." I put true story in quotation marks, because there is some dispute as to whether his controversial and revealing look at assassins hired to pick off four British Army soldiers actually happened.
Killer Elite follows the story of Danny Bryce (Played by the aforementioned Statham) a former "assassin-for-hire" that got out of the killing business only to be sucked back in by a wealthy, aging Sheikh that has kidnapped his friend Hunter (Robert De Niro) and will only release him if Danny agrees to extract confessions from, and subsequently kills, three former British soldiers that killed his sons during war in the 1980s.
Danny begrudgingly agrees to the task in order to save his friend and teams up with two other assassins to get the job done. In pursuit of completing the job, they run into resistance in the form of a man who simply goes by Spike (Clive Owen) who runs an off-the-record security force to protect former members of the British Special Air Service.
If you've seen Crank, The Italian Job, Transporter, or any other Jason Statham movie, then you know there are certain things to expect. You know that if something on-screen has the capacity to explode, it will do just that. You know that if Jason Statham has no weapons and a conflict is on the horizon, he will kill his opponents using only his hands and whatever heavy objects are at his fingertips. You also know that his coarse, impenetrable personality will be melted away whenever he gets around a beautiful woman. There is no shortage of these things in Killer Elite.
Much of the first 45 minutes is highly confusing. Gary McKendry either didn't know how to share useful information like "Hey, who's house is this that he's breaking into out of nowhere?" or he didn't think it was any of our business. There are plenty of directors who have been guilty of trying to use confusion as a way of tricking an audience into thinking there is depth to a film that doesn't actually exist, but I think this was more a case of McKendry honestly not realizing that he was leaving out valuable details.
Viewers will be able to put together the missing pieces as the movie goes on, but they're distracting questions that take away from an already thin story.
As a brief side note, I have to say that the later years of Robert De Niro's career continue to depress me. He is in this movie strictly because his name is Robert De Niro. He isn't given much to do and the little he is given doesn't fit him.
Killer Elite is Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality/nudity.
Overall, I'll give the movie 1 hilarious Clive Owen mustache out of 5. The movie is just a mess. Explosions and hand-to-hand combat dominate the screen while you're left wondering why you should care about any of these characters and the dilemmas they face.
It's probably not fair, but anytime I see that Jason Statham is in a movie, I know I'm probably in for something other than groundbreaking cinema. I suppose that makes me a cynic.
Killer Elite is the directorial debut of Gary McKendry and adapts the "true story" of Ranulph Fiennes' 1991 book "The Feather Men." I put true story in quotation marks, because there is some dispute as to whether his controversial and revealing look at assassins hired to pick off four British Army soldiers actually happened.
Killer Elite follows the story of Danny Bryce (Played by the aforementioned Statham) a former "assassin-for-hire" that got out of the killing business only to be sucked back in by a wealthy, aging Sheikh that has kidnapped his friend Hunter (Robert De Niro) and will only release him if Danny agrees to extract confessions from, and subsequently kills, three former British soldiers that killed his sons during war in the 1980s.
Danny begrudgingly agrees to the task in order to save his friend and teams up with two other assassins to get the job done. In pursuit of completing the job, they run into resistance in the form of a man who simply goes by Spike (Clive Owen) who runs an off-the-record security force to protect former members of the British Special Air Service.
If you've seen Crank, The Italian Job, Transporter, or any other Jason Statham movie, then you know there are certain things to expect. You know that if something on-screen has the capacity to explode, it will do just that. You know that if Jason Statham has no weapons and a conflict is on the horizon, he will kill his opponents using only his hands and whatever heavy objects are at his fingertips. You also know that his coarse, impenetrable personality will be melted away whenever he gets around a beautiful woman. There is no shortage of these things in Killer Elite.
Much of the first 45 minutes is highly confusing. Gary McKendry either didn't know how to share useful information like "Hey, who's house is this that he's breaking into out of nowhere?" or he didn't think it was any of our business. There are plenty of directors who have been guilty of trying to use confusion as a way of tricking an audience into thinking there is depth to a film that doesn't actually exist, but I think this was more a case of McKendry honestly not realizing that he was leaving out valuable details.
Viewers will be able to put together the missing pieces as the movie goes on, but they're distracting questions that take away from an already thin story.
As a brief side note, I have to say that the later years of Robert De Niro's career continue to depress me. He is in this movie strictly because his name is Robert De Niro. He isn't given much to do and the little he is given doesn't fit him.
Killer Elite is Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality/nudity.
Overall, I'll give the movie 1 hilarious Clive Owen mustache out of 5. The movie is just a mess. Explosions and hand-to-hand combat dominate the screen while you're left wondering why you should care about any of these characters and the dilemmas they face.