Killer Elite

Based on a true story, Killer Elite sees a hired assassin called back into duty when his mentor is held hostage by a powerful sheik who wants revenge on the SAS men who killed his sons. Danny takes the job in order to get Hunter released – a job that involves getting the men to confess on camera before killing them in such a way that it looks like an accident and cannot be traced back. However the targets are a paranoid bunch and once a few questions are asked and one of the men dies, the secretive group behind the deaths put former soldier Spike onto the case, pitting the two trained killers against each other.

This film feels like a missed opportunity and more must have been hoped for it – not least by the relatively big name stars that were involved. This is a tale of murky secrets, covert actions overseas, trained killers and the influence of money and power – it should be much more interesting that it is here, but the decision appears to have been taken to make it as a straight generic thriller. This isn't really a problem in terms of some of the action because there are "good bits" in here, the problem comes from the fact that the material actually doesn't lend itself to this approach as much as you would have liked. So, for example, this sort of generic thriller really suits simple characters, simple plots and thumping action scenes but instead Killer Elite hands us with two groups, neither of whom are particularly "likeable", so the genre approach tells the viewer to root for the good guy – but the plot gives us no clue as to who this is. I have no issue with murky and unlikeable characters, the problem is that the delivery of the film doesn't do anything with it and tries to force it all into a mould that it doesn't fit.

Fortunately the more dramatic sequences are still pretty good (not great, but good) and they come up reasonably often to allow the film to temporarily be the film it wants to be. Not often enough though, and all of them are damaged by the fact that the rest of the film around them isn't working as well – and there is a lot of "other film", too much in fact and it runs a good twenty minutes longer than it can cope with. Much like with the recent film Blitz, Statham does his thing well – whether it suits the film or not. He delivers what you expect him to and again maybe he is part of the reason the film is pushed to be something it is not. Owen appears to be more in touch with what the material should be and also does well with the mano-a-mano stuff that the film asks of him, but it is hard to watch him delivering on a complexity that the finished film had no interest in. De Niro is a solid presence because of who he is, but he is really phoning this in. Akinnuoye-Agbaje only has a small role but, as a fan of Oz who knows how good he can be, it is always good to see him in things.

There is a good story in Killer Elite but unfortunately all but the bullet points is lost in a telling that is trying to make more of a standard thriller and doesn't seem able or willing to do anything with the murky aspects of plot or characters. The end result is a so-so thriller with a so-so plot and performances that mostly don't really work. I wonder at what point in the production they started making it something it wasn't, but regardless when it happened, it did seem to happen and it is a shame because the story deserved to be told better than it was here.

Stirring as well as non-stop action movie , being allegedly based on facts , though the SAS even went on the record to disown both writer Fiennes and his book . After a brilliantly exciting opening in a thrilling terrorist action executed by Danny (Jason Statham) his mentor named Hunter (Robert De Niro , he is the only American born actor in this film) is taken captive by a disgraced Arab sheik, then the killer-for-hire is forced into action . His assignment : kill three members of Britain's elite Special Air Service responsible for the death of his sons . As it concentrates on the painful vendetta proceeded by an Arab oil magnate , as he kidnaps Hunter and coerces to Danny his search for revenge . Covering the globe from Australia to Paris, London and the Middle East, Danny helped by Davies (Dominic Purcell), and Meier (Aden Young) pull off his relentless mission to free their colleague who is being held captive .

This moving picture contains thrills , unstoppable action , betrayal , fighting , car pursuits and lots of deaths , as it has a great body count : 21 . There are echoes here of many other action movies and behind the deceits , plot twists and manipulation is essentially a simple yarn . This is a thrilling picture in which our main starring , Jason Statham , is plunged into a highly dangerous game of vendetta and deception - where things are not always what they appear to be . The film is built around the internal secret services and SAS which sidelines in dirty work that ever the CIA won't touch . The flick contemplates the old themes of trust , friendship , vengeance , treason , cold violence and humiliation . The set pieces such as car chases , impressive as well as violent fights and a roof chases including bounds and leaps are all magnificent , as are so many secondary scenes . Interesting screenplay by Matt Sherring plenty of twists and turns , being inspired by the book "The Feather Men" written by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, this was an English adventurer, polar explorer and former SAS man is the author of The Feather Men, the novel from which this film is adapted . Although he has often claimed the novel was a true story, the families of the real dead SAS men named in the novel who died on SAS exercises and the SAS themselves publicly attacked it as sick exploitation and complete fiction . As mentioned above, all the families and the British special forces denied they had been consulted or involved in any way with the book .

The main cast is pretty good such as Jason Statham , Clive Owen , Yvonne Strahovski and Robert De Niro . Though the main starring results to be Jason Statham who from Transporter (2002) he already had a background in martial arts which enabled him to perform his own fight sequences , he followed in several similar roles as a two-fisted hunk in Charles Bronson ink such as War , Crank , The mechanic , Safe , Parker , Blitz , Hummingbird , Homefront , Wild card among others . Support cast is frankly well such as Dominic Purcell, Ben Mendelsohn, Anden Young , Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje , Nick Tate , Bille Brown, Stewart Morritt, and Grant Bowler . Atmospheric and appropriate musical score by Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek . Colorful and adequate cinematography by Simon Duggan . The motion picture was professionally directed by Gary McKendry , though has ups and downs . Rating : 6 . Acceptable and passable . Not very good , but enough to be going on with .

The storyline was mildly interesting, about Statham attempting to rescue De Niro from the hands of a sheik who wants Statham to seek and destroy several people that killed the sheik's three sons. The story follows their brief investigations along the way. Statham also recruits Dominic Purcell (Blade Trinity) and another. The investigations give a hint of what they're looking for, then they search and almost always find their target without much trouble. That's the gist of the storyline throughout. No major spikes in the flat line story till the end. Just an observation.

Being a huge action fan, this is what I paid to see after a good storyline. The action fight scenes featuring Statham are poor at best, not because of Statham or his enemy, but do to the director of photography filming too tight on the action, and the editor cutting every split second to another angle, resulting in the infamous "What just happened? Who hit who? What the hell is going on here?" This style is mostly reserved for low budget TV shows, though I can think of one that puts this movie's fight scenes to shame. A wasted opportunity probably in an attempt to rush through the scene. If film makers think action fans don't care, they need to think again and stop giving us a jumbled, incoherent mess of a fight scene.

The shoot outs are decent, but De Niro barely has his moments, since the story line keeps him as the one needing rescue. (See Ronin for his best).

Beware to those looking for Jason Statham in a new classic fight scene. It's not found here.

"Killer Elite", not to be confused for the Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, is basically Jason Statham being Jason Statham kicking ass, but this time he's facing off against Clive Owen and a bunch of other, more sophisticated bad guys. But since Robert De Niro showed him the tricks of the trade, it just couldn't get any more macho than it already is.

This movie is not just the typical shoot-em-up action fest. There is an actual espionage plot going underway, and though the screenplay isn't exactly original, the story unfolds in an engaging and intriguing way that I became concerned of the story for once and not just awaiting every action scene. The characters are fleshed out more often than most shoot-em-up movies of late. There's some beams of intelligence in certain scenes, though it's clearly not on the same level of the Jason Bourne movies. It tries hard though, and I have to give it credit for that. Was it really based on a true story? The film certainly doesn't say so, as it presents the somewhat complex tale as the usual Jason Statham ass-kicking fest. No comment there.

Judging from his previous movies I'd say "Killer Elite" is better than Statham's previous outings "The Mechanic" and the dreadful "Blitz". Statham is still great at being badass and here he is no exception, although he actually gets hurt in this film a couple of times. Clive Owen is the best and most convincing actor in the film almost giving Statham a run for his money. De Niro is low-key here but I suspect it's just a warm-up for his next big project with Scorsese. Yvonne Strahovski is just emotional fodder for Statham's character and her moments with him are somewhat clichéd but still, not cheesy, although knowing her role from TV's "Chuck", she deserves better. Dominic Purcell is also quite funny as one of Statham's assassin friends. The rest of the cast was not bad.

Production wise, the settings all look gritty and downbeat and someone's bound to get beaten up or shot pretty good in one of these sets. The music by Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek is alright but by-the-numbers. Simon Duggan's cinematography is good too - until the fight scenes. We do not want excessive shaky camera during ALL of the fight scenes, Mr. Duggan. The epic fight scene between Statham and Owen was almost ruined because of this.

If there were some things that would make the film better, they would be - better dialogue at parts, more Owen, and much more De Niro. As it stands, "Killer Elite" is a pretty good, solid and tough action film, and will definitely score a home run with Statham fans.

I eagerly await Statham's "Safe" because I feel that film is going to be genuinely very good.

Overall rating: 69/100

Killer Elite starts with the Jason Statham super-assassin fare, some random Mexican or South American dude is getting whacked and Jason Statham as Danny here kills car-fulls of them. But, then it manages to enormously over-complicate things the way only a British movie can do. There is the secret society called the feather-men (because their touch is sooo soooft), some oil sheik who hires Danny by kidnapping his mentor and a whole slew of characters and sub-characters that inhabit the Killer Elite world that all manage to be a little inconsistent with the rules of the movie.

Jason Statham, DiNiro and Clive Owen star, one gets the feeling they aren't in the movie but are sort of doing their thing floating above it. Statham has to be the super-man, the assassin who can kill a whole army if he wants to, DiNiro has to have his intricate monologues and dialogs, and Clive Owen has to be a badass. It does claim to be inspired by a true story but it's hard to weed out the "it could happen" true part and the chaff that all the big actors drag into the movie. We have the hokey "it's easy to kill but the hard part is living with it" kind of assassin introspection and on the other hand it hints at blood for oil military campaigns and political web but they distinctly form two separate layers in the movie.

As an action movie, it's full of it's shares of shootouts, grisly deaths, car chases and burly men punch-ups. It does that weird thing where goons are shot in the leg or punched in the head rather than killed. I suppose if you don't really care how the plot stupidly unravels itself, it's a decent action movie. But, as a plot, it's over-complicated and borderline nonsensical.