I grew up with action movies. While my favourite will always be Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport (highly recommended over Bloodsport 2), I’ve memorized parts of Bruce Willis’s Die Hard as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando and Total Recall. My memories of ’80s action films may be rose-coloured due to nostalgia, but I’ve still found contemporary action films to be lacking in comparison. None have lacked as terribly, however, as Killer Elite.
Jason Statham plays lead character Danny, a retired member of Britain’s Special Air Service squad. Killer Elite starts out like any normal assassin-based action film — I’m not going to hide the fact that I got chills when Robert De Niro busted out a machine gun in his hand and totaled a car with it. Even after the stereotypical line, “I’ve just scarred a kid’s entire childhood by killing a man in front of him, now I’m quitting the biz” passes Jason Statham’s lips, the movie draws you back in, explaining that the current time is characterized by a world full of back dealings and death — “it is 1980.” With an introduction like that, the film sets itself up to be a fun-but-bullet-holed action movie — so much so that you won’t mind the stereotypical kidnapping of mentor Hunter, played by De Niro, forcing Danny back into the biz. But then the shit hits the fan.
Having never seen a British action movie, I can’t determine whether the film’s story structure is disorganized due to British styling or just a lack of expertise on the editor’s part. Apparently Statham’s character has “left the business” for a year before hearing his mentor De Niro is missing. All we know is that Statham has been living out of a van in the middle of nowhere. Through flashbacks that are placed throughout the first act, we learn that Statham has fallen in love, been working to renovate a house and trying to keep his assassin life a secret. But we don’t finish these flashbacks until a third of the way into the movie — far beyond the point when the audience should be connecting or at least sympathizing with the main character. You’ll find yourself more interested in supporting actor Dominic Purcell, who plays the eclectic character Davies, or Clive Owen’s awesomely-named character Spike.
Trust me when I say that you will be uncaring about Statham’s character and his overall motivations until at least halfway through the movie when you will realize that, oh, he’s not supposed to have a personality — he’s an archetypal action hero. I can’t fault the movie for being stereotypical as action movies, even my beloved ’80s movies never seem to budge from that tried-and-true formula. What I fault the movie for is taking itself far too seriously. What’s even stranger is that the movie is based off the 1991 non-fiction novel, The Feather Men by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The funny thing about “based-on-a-true-story” films is that they always keep at least 10 per cent of the original premise, but the other 90 per cent is pure fiction. That is Killer Elite. With the hyperbolic, hilarious introduction of “It is 1980” and the quasi-artistic attempt of flashback editing, this film doesn’t know where to place itself genre-wise. Is it a fun throwback à la The Expendables, or is it a serious book adaptation about conspiracy theories? I certainly couldn’t tell you.
Part of the badly eclectic styling of this movie is due to the eight production companies that funded it (a sign that Killer Elite had problems getting off the ground) and the director, Gary McKendry. McKendry is only known from his short film Everything in This Country Must, which won a 2005 Academy Award. Killer Elite is his first full-length film, which accounts for the lack of direction — not that he is a bad director, only inexperienced in dealing with a piece as long as 100 minutes and the pressures of several distinct production companies with distinct agendas. After learning that McKendry hails from Northern Ireland, however, the amount of violence in the film makes a lot more sense.
Overall, Killer Elite fails hardcore as an action movie, largely because it falters in its direction. It can’t decide where it should go, what genre it should be or why it was even being made. There are some things the movie does right, however, like its gun fight and fist fight scenes — some of the stunts done in the film are fantastic to watch. If you were hoping Killer Elite would be a sweet action movie to see with your buddies this weekend, I recommend you pass it and see Drive instead. Wait until Killer Elite comes out on Netflix before watching it.