Killer Elite – Review

Some movies hold you down and hit you over the head with awesome, while others take their time and still leave you satisfied. Killer Elite is in the latter category. Directed by first time director Gary McKendry, the flick fits in more with the Bourne series than most of today’s action movies. Based on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’s book The Feather Men, a tome that is a supposedly a true story, McKendry’s Killer Elite is a slow burning action thriller that won’t disappoint, but doesn’t quite deliver the total package.

The flick follows the covert exploits of Danny Bryce (Jason Statham) and his friend and mentor Hunter (Robert De Niro), two soldiers for hire. After a particularly difficult job Danny has retired and is building a life for himself outside of the killing business, only as he begins to get comfortable he finds out that Hunter has been kidnapped by an Arab Sheik. Of course Danny swoops in to save Hunter, and finds out that the Sheik will only release Hunter if he take on an assassination job. It seems that the Sheik’s sons were murdered by a team of British Special Air Service bad-asses, and it’s them that are on the kill list. Danny takes the job in order to save his friend, but the job becomes even more arduous when a rogue former SAS member named Spike (Clive Owen) steps in to protect his SAS brethren from Danny.

In this writers humble opinion Jason Statham one hell of an action star, but it was nice to see him step back a little and breathe. Sure, Killer Elite has some impressive action sequences, and yes, Statham kicks major ass, but this flick is two parts thriller one part action. Dominic Purcell stole almost every scene that was lucky enough to feature him as Davies, the fun loving mercenary on Danny’s team. Hell, all of the actors dial in spectacular performances, but still the flick never quite hits its mark. The cinematography is beautiful, and the visual effects are above par, but unfortunately the script falls a little short. With a shade more character development and a slightly tighter story, Killer Elite could have been the action-thriller of the year.

Killer Elite is an action-thriller worth checking out, just don’t go in expecting it to be an action extravaganza. It’s a film about killers that is a killer film that almost reached its full potential.

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