Hey folks, Harry here... as soon as I heard Statham, De Niro, Clive Owen & Mr Eko... well that's a cast that earns at least a matinee, right? Well here's the latest trailer for it, which is hosted over at IMDB. More interesting though are the brief thoughts of one of our spies (folks like you that send in anonymous Test Screening reviews) that happened to SEE this film, and sounds like he dug it. No spoilers, but this and that trailer... I'm interested. How about you?
Now, here's the mini-review:
Hey Harry,
Last night I saw a special screening of "Killer Elite". It was a packed house, but there seemed to be no celebrities in sight. I'm guessing because it was a test screening, they weren't necessary. The film is a hard R and pulls no punches with the action scenes. Which is what the film deserves.
The plot revolves around Statham (playing Statham) having to rescue his mentor (played by Robert Deniro) from an assassin (Clive Owen) who uses three of his best men to make that journey a short one for Jason. As you can tell, there's a lot of action scenes with Jason but the difference between his last few films (like The Mechanic which sucked) is that they choreograph the scenes perfectly. It feels like a real fight, and not so much like a bunch of scenes where Clive and Jason shoot blanks at each other while running around.
The story is a bit simplistic, but that's the norm of action films. DeNiro's character has a family who he's worked his whole life for, Jason's a loner who see's DeNiro as his one and only friend. That's all the motivation you're gonna understand. Owen meanwhile works quite well in one of the few rare moments as a bad guy (you know, when he wasn't being killed by Jason Bourne) And actually seems to be better at (along with more refreshing) than when he was doing it in "The International"
Without spoiling the story, I'll say it does have a few unpredictable moments. It kept my attention fairly well, and the audience was responding great to it. When I was writing on the card about my thoughts, I felt there wasn't as much of DeNiro as you wanted to see. Even with all the shit he's done nowadays, he still has the on screen charisma that draws you in. Jason's a good actor, but he didn't do anything different here. Owen carried a lot of this film. So with that, I'll say go see it and enjoy it. Just know that it's a Statham movie, not a DeNiro film.
