2 out of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Some old school action (plus optional caterpillar)
TheWatchman from from Suburbia,
18th January, 2012
Killer Elite stars three heavyweight performers – Robert DeNiro (nuff said), Jason Statham, Clive Owen and a three inch hair caterpillar who balances delightfully on Clive Owen’s upper lip throughout every last shootout. Statham is an ex mercenary whose mentor, DeNiro, gets kidnapped, forcing poor Jason out of his Down Under hideaway to rescue him while pursued by Clive Owen and the caterpillar. I found this an odd film, not the plot, the acting, or the shootouts, just the retro UK feel. I’m used to seeing these sorts of films set in America and thinking nothing of it. Yet spending nearly two hours watching secret societies and black op killers driving early eighties cars through London’s council estates just didn’t seem real to me (like getting caught up in international spy rings happens to me every day). Killer Elite kind of takes everything that’s good about the four leads: Statham’s ‘hard man’ action scenes, DeNiro’s loveable gangster persona (okay, so he’s a mercenary in this, but, seriously, he could be straight off the set of Goodfellas), Clive Owen’s suave should-have-been-James-Bond style and the caterpillar’s fuzziness in the face of danger. Then the movie blends all of these together, even claiming that it’s all based on true events (or a book at least claiming it was all real). If you like your action ‘old school’ and ‘rough and ready,’ you’ll probably like Killer Elite. Dare I say it, it’s probably ‘lads only?’ It’s hardly a ‘chick click,’ although some ladies may manage to sit through it based on Statham’s arms, Owen’s gaze and the caterpillar’s strokability. Solid and better than average, but, ultimately, nothing new.
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