This movie is laughably bad. Oh my goodness.
It's nice to see Nathalie Emmanuel outside of the Furiously Fast series and it's nice seeing Omar Sy and Sam Worthington again but this movie just steadily gets more campy and more cringe and more stupid as it progresses. The best scene is probably the club hit early on, and it gives you a false sense that the movie is going to be better than the poster - it isn't. In that respect, The Killer (2024) reminds me of Smile (2022). Folks went crazy for Smile. Smile went downhill after the opening scene and never recovered.
I watched Silent Night (2023). It wasn't horrible, but maybe John Woo should've stopped with that.
I don't care that the story isn't original, I care that the script is poorly written and the direction is lackluster. Zee is poorly written, Sey is poorly written, Jenn is poorly written, and Finn says "Kushala Daora" one-two many times. Jax is probably the best written character and he's on-screen for like 5 minutes total.
I got the impression early on that they were going for a Killing Eve (2018-2022) vibe, but yeah, no. It's just sad.
Can someone competent take this cast, this concept - this "Queen of the Dead" idea, and do it properly?
If you're looking for some female-led assassin action, check out The Protégé (2021) which wasn't a masterpiece but it was more entertaining than this, Anna (2019), Salt (2010), Red Sparrow (2018), or Atomic Blonde (2017).
Yes, we all needed another "girl boss" flick to spark our inner woke, didn't we?
What's that you say, "hell no", well then, read on. The Killer starts off with a main character, an assassin no less, who comes across as being about as tough and intimidating, as a bowl of warm mashed potato. But hey, she has a punch bag in her bohemian bedsit. Not to mention a handler who looks like he can, in fact, handle himself.
Indeed, the underlying strategy seems to be to use visually gritty characters and cues, to drown out the entirely non-threatening nature of the lead character. Its a bit like sitting a potted rose down with pots of cacti, in the hope people will inexplicably mistake one, for the other.
As you might expect, the results another absurdly unconvincing, predominantly exposition driven, affair, that would, I feel have only worked if re-imagined as a satirical comedy.
That's not to say this is the fault of the actors. Its a decent cast, who have found themselves mis-cast, no doubt, I'm guessing, so the script can play gender politics. Suffice to say, the quality acting, is one of the limited upsides, of this flick.
In summary, no amount of suspension of disbelief, will make this work.I personally wonder why they persist, when everything I see, seems to suggest the viewing public have thoroughly rejected, the DEI agenda, in favour of a return to traditional, sensible, entertainment.
73/100
Action maestro John Woo takes his 1989 film, "The Killer", and puts a new spin on it and, at least for me, it works wonderfully. Nathalie Emmanuel, as the assassin and Omar Sy, as the cop, did a great job developing extremely likable characters and some great cat & mouse moments. I even like Sam Worthington in this, which is rare. Diana Silvers as the injured singer was sort of 'meh' but she got the job done. The dialogue seemed weak at times and the story is completely familiar but we're here for the action and on that, they delivered in spades. Enjoyable! -- DrNostromo
