KILLER ELITE – The Review

I did not think a film with a lineup like Robert De Niro, Jason Statham, and Clive Owen could let me down. Man, was I wrong!

Based on a true story, Danny (Jason Statham) and Hunter (Robert De Niro) are elite operatives who are trained to kill. When Hunter becomes imprisoned by a wealthy sheikh from Dubai , Danny is forced  to kill three targets from the British Special Air Service (SAS) who were responsible for the murders of his three oldest sons in order for Danny’s release. The only problem, is that this puts Spike (Clive Owen) on his tail, and he is just as well trained as Danny.

This film wasn’t very good, to say the least. I can appreciate a film that is more focused on the action, rather than an actual story, but this was just awful. It starts out strong, with a nice action sequence. Tensions are high as Danny and Hunter complete their mission, but this promise of suspense goodness was just a lie… sigh. After this, the film enters into cheesy Hollywood territory. It is over-saturated with an unimportant love story, and under-saturated with excitement. For a true story, this film looks like a lie… and not in the good “Holy crap! That just blew my mind!” way. Instead, the whole film feels fake, insincere, and boring.

Statham does what he does best in the film… kick ass. He is a fantastic action star. The problem isn’t with his stunt work. The problem is that they spent no real time developing his character. Heck, that’s still more time than they spent on De Niro! I know that he was being held captive, but when you put De Niro in a film, you give the man camera time! When the two separated for the first time onscreen, the film went downhill. As for Owen, his character felt like he came out of a really bad comic book movie. It wasn’t because of the all black clothing, mustache, or glass eye though. Instead, it was how the character was written, and how Owen played him. Owen wasn’t bad in the role, but bad writing and the slightly crazy way that Owen acted as he spoke his lines only added to the cartoon-villain-persona of Spike.

Another thing that really bothered me about this films is that it tried to be smarter than it actually was. We’ve all had that friend… the guy that tries to use big words, or talk about things that they clearly know nothing about in order to appear smart. It feels like that guy wrote this screenplay! The film is slow, minus the occasional impressive action scene, and bogged down by the political story that was told in a rather shotty way. This lead for horrible pacing. I could not wait for this to end! It was just plain dull. They even tried to keep it spontaneous by jumping to shots of Statham’s past, but that helped nothing. Nor did the love story, which was out of place. Sure, I can see including a love interest if the true story included it, but they took this one too far. If they would have spent as much time developing the political aspect to the story as they did with the romance, the film might have actually been worth watching. Oh, and thank you for ending the film with the lovers driving off into the distance, rather than a heartfelt moment between the two main characters! I have no idea who had that brilliant idea, but they failed!

This film was a letdown on so many levels that I can only recommend it if you are looking to take a nap in the theaters!

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars