It should have been killed at birth
Cinema
Daniel Carey
THERE’S a scene in the 1997 film ‘Grosse Point Blank’ where assassin Martin Q Blank (John Cusack) explains to his psychiatrist why he’s reluctant to go to an upcoming school reunion. “They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they’ve all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do,” he notes. “What am I gonna say? ‘I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?’”
‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ was essentially a one-joke movie, but had a lot going for it. There was black comedy, likeable leads, a witty script and an original idea. Now, 13 years on (and five years after the Brangelina vehicle ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’), the ‘assassin in everyday life’ gets another outing.
On each of the four counts above, ‘Killers’ is a failure. It’s been designated a comedy, but has few laughs. Those in the lead roles have little to be proud of here. The script is terrible. And the idea is beginning to pall. In short, the latest effort from director Robert Luketic (the man behind ‘Monster In Law’ and ‘Legally Blonde’) should have been killed at birth.
The picture opens in Nice, France, where Jen (Katherine Heigl), just after a bad break-up, has come on holidays with her parents, played by Tom Selleck and Catherine O’Hara. There she meets Spencer (Ashton Kutcher), who blows up a helicopter on their first date but neglects to tell her that he’s a professional killer. Three years later, he’s got out of that line of work and the couple are now happily married and back in the States. Then, the morning after his 30th birthday, it emerges that a $20 million bounty has been placed on his head, and most of his neighbours are planning to collect.
That’s actually not a bad set up – ‘True Lies’ had great fun with the ‘what do you mean my spouse kills people?’ shtick. The problem is, ‘Killers’ never really goes anywhere. Once Spencer reveals all (or not – his exact explanation of his past life is: “Let’s just say I work for the blah, blah, blah and I have a licence to blah”), there’s no character development – or plot development, for that matter.
The flick could at the very least have had fun by alternating between close shaves with friends-turned-enemies and innocent encounters with genuine neighbours. But there are no surprises. Just about everyone is out to get Spencer. “Is anyone NOT trying to kill me?” he asks at one stage. My thoughts exactly.
As things trundle on, the focus is more on action (and numerous rather brutal murders) than comedy – but there are few thrills. And with little chemistry between the leads, we are quickly mired in the land of drama. Laughs are sparse in this arid landscape. Two questions from Jen – “You wanna poke Momma Bear, that sound like a good idea?” and “You couldn’t have been hiding trannie porn?” – are about as good as it gets.
The closing stages involve a twist and a bizarre ‘trust circle’. “If someone kills Mr Perfect before I have a chance to, I’ll shoot both of you on general principle”, a female assassin says at one point, in an unfortunate echo of a John Travolta line in ‘Pulp Fiction’.
I don’t think I’ve written down less during a screening. There was so little worth noting. Having left my comfortable seat watching France’s tame exit at the World Cup, I couldn’t help feeling that the audience is the real victim here.
Rating 3 out of 10
