BEFORE: Sometimes I look back at the schedule over the last few days and I just think, "Well nobody else EVER would watch "Lying and Stealing", "Mr. Malcolm's List" and "The Marvels" in that order..." because, well, why would they? Those movies have nothing in common other than sharing the actors that link them. This is how I've chosen to live my life, though, and I feel like I'm unique, if nothing else. At least I'm wasting my time in a constructive way, if that makes any sense. I want it all to add up to some grander purpose, but I'm just not sure if it does.
Hailee Steinfeld carries over from "The Marvels".
THE PLOT: A dying CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter is offered an experimental drug that could save his life - in exchange for one last assignment.
AFTER: In 2014, Kevin Costner became the latest actor to play one of those secret agents (or assassins/hit-men) who can "read the room", meaning that they can walk into a room full of enemies and kill them all, using whatever is handy, even if that's just, say, a meat slicer and a panini press. Hey, sometimes you've just got to make it work, if your gun is jammed and you don't have a knife (or grenade, or garotte, or baseball bat...) on you. This was a big trend in movies for a few years, like they did it with the Ben Affleck Batman and John Wick and quite a few others.
But they didn't want this Ethan Renner character to come off like a superhero, so they gave him a disabiliity, he's got brain cancer, which always seems to affect him at the worst possible times, like when he's got the bad guy cornered and it's an easy kill shot, only then his illness takes over and he's down for the count. So, the level boss gets away, and the princess is in ANOTHER castle, and the game continues until the two hours is almost up.
Along comes a mysterious woman who gives him a literal lifeline, an experimental drug that MAY cure him, but of course there's a catch, he's got to track down the baddies who got away from the failed CIA operation, and kill them. Vivi Delay (aka "Ms. Plot Complication") was watching from afar as the sting mission went south, the bomb went off and the Albino got away, despite Renner's attempt to follow him. It's great that her interests dovetail neatly with those of the Agency, but now he's got to do undercover work, find out the schedule of the Albino AND the Wolf, while trying to re-connect with his estranged wife and teen daughter, who haven't seen him in five years. Well, come on, the guy's been busy (presumably) saving the world, or maybe just killing a bunch of people who were all bad people, really for sure.
Of course there are side effects, he can't get too tired, or his body will shut down. He can't get too excited, either, with a high heart rate or the experimental drug will make him hallucinate. No worries, a couple shots of vodka will clear his head straighten him out, but now he's got to worry about getting drunk, so it's a delicate balance. Plus his wife knows what he does for a living, and his daughter does NOT, so he's got to keep hiding things from her, and this would only be a problem if his wife gets a gig in another city and he becomes the primary caregiver for the next few days. Also if his daughter was secretly going out to clubs and lying to her parents, yeah that would be a big problem, also.
In addition, there's a family of squatters living in his Paris safe house, and the complicated French laws actually prevent him from evicting them - they have more rights than he does to live in his own property, which seems a bit weird. I'm not sure if this was added to the plot as a social commentary, an attempt to humanize the main character, or just another complication in a long, long list of them. Well, I guess we really don't want to see a conflict that's TOO easy for the hero, but this is all just a bit ridiculous, as is Renner's obsession with forcing his daughter to ride a bicycle. He's clearly pining for some father-daughter connection that he missed out on years ago, but COME ON.
And it wasn't just me, that scene where Renner carries his daughter out of the nightclub was a clear visual reference to Kevin Costner rescuing Whitney Houston's character in "The Bodyguard". They just couldn't resist... apparently there are a few "JFK" easter eggs in here, too. And Renner learns about the Wolf's whereabouts by capturing his accountant, which is how Eliot Ness got a line on Al Capone in "The Untouchables". Now I'm surprised that there wasn't a baby carriage bouncing down the steps to the Paris Metro in the subway scene...
Also starring Kevin Costner (last seen in "De Palma"), Amber Heard (last seen in "I Do... Until I Don't"), Connie Nielsen (last seen in "Nobody"), Tomas Lemarquis (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Richard Sammel (last seen in "Spencer"), Marc Andreoni (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers"), Bruno Ricci (last seen in "Captain America: The First Avenger"), Jonas Bloquet (last seen in "The Family"), Marie Guillard (ditto), Eriq Ebouaney (last seen in "Kingdom of Heaven"), Joakhim Sigue, Alison Valence, Jonathan "Big John" Barbezieux, , Michael Vander-Meiren (last seen in "Taken 2"), Eric Naggar (last seen in "Mr. Bean's Holiday"), Patty Hannock, Alizee Delaruelle, Ilyana Delaruelle, Romane Ferreira, Rupert Wynne-James (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Shane Woodward, Mai Anh Le, Omid Zader (last seen in "Vice" (2018)), Raymond J. Barry (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Rob Roy Fitzgerald (last seen in "Can't Hardly Wait"), Scott Burn,
RATING: 6 out of 10 rolls of duct tape (it really can be used for anything...)
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