Though it shares its title with a 1975 Sam Peckinpah flick, Killer Elite is actually a surprisingly better-than-average Jason Statham thriller, one that nicely complements the perpetually scowling star’s standard shtick of talking tough, kicking butt and driving cars really fast with a somewhat weightier plot and the comparatively superior acting chops of Clive Owen and Robert De Niro.
Based on a controversial book by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, it opens in 1980 as mercenaries Statham and De Niro and their two colleagues take out a target. A year later, Statham is forced to take a job eliminating three ex-SAS agents for an exiled Oman sheik holding De Niro hostage, during which he encounters Owen, the chief enforcer for a secret society of former SAS operatives protecting their own.
The film’s overall tone is closer to The Bourne Identity than Death Race, which means few explosions but lots of gunfire, a couple car chases and some energetic fight scenes, the highlights being Statham and Owen’s brutal hospital brawl and a three-way third-act scuffle between Owen, a tied-up Statham and a British government agent involved in a convoluted bigger-picture scenario.
I can’t say Statham really stretches here, but he does at least get some chances to try, like during the excellent opening-act action when he discovers he’s killed the target right in front of the target’s young son, or in general when, during his subsequent retirement, he begins a relationship with a blonde and very beautiful Australian (Chuck‘s Yvonne Strahovski, with too little to do).
Owen, on the other hand, is the main reason the film is more than just another Statham vehicle. He skillfully creates a character who’s intelligent, determined and very capable physically, and who carries a deep respect for his fellow former SAS members, going so far as to chastise young pub patrons for not respecting the news about one of his fallen comrades. Watching him here makes me just a little sadder that he turned down the chance to play James Bond.
In any case, the film is most interesting when he and Statham share scenes, and I don’t just mean their initial hospital mêlée, but their subsequent, dialogue-driven moments. This includes a nicely tense confrontation in Owen’s home, as well as Owen’s interrogation of Statham, which features perhaps the film’s best shot in Owen’s beautifully wry reaction to Statham asking to be untied.
De Niro has far less screen time but still comes off very well, both as Statham’s good-hearted mentor, and the macho badass he becomes when stalking around with a machine gun. As the other mercenary members, Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) sports a hideous ’70s mustache and oozes ladies-man sleaze, while Aden Young (The Tree) makes next to no impression, though his character does get the admittedly neat task of remote-controlling a tanker truck. - [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
Rated R
Useless film, but did other people notice the strange allusion to Stanley Kubrick’s sophomore feature, Killer’s Kiss? In both films, the hero is chased across a series of rooftops, before a showdown in a mannequin warehouse.