I saw the poster of this movie in the Coming Soon section of several cinemas I've been to in the past few months. But only yesterday the movie had its wide release (albeit only in 1 cinema chain). Once again for this type of movie which was unclear of the quality, I opted to see it by myself without the company of my wife. I would let her know later on if it is worth seeing. Anyway, we should go to the movie details now.
Brief Story Line
A mysterious woman with unknown background simply called Courier (Olga Kurylenko - Johnny English Strikes Again, Oblivion etc) was hired to deliver a package. However, what she did not know was her latest assignment would get her entangled with an assassination attempt on a key witness Nick (Amit Shah - Final Score etc) who was guarded by FBI and Interpol led by agent Simmonds (Alicia Agneson).
Nick was supposed to testify against a powerful and shady businessman based in New York, Ezekiel Mannings (Gary Oldman - Hunter Killer, Criminal etc) who was under house arrest while waiting for the trial. Despite his limitation, Mannings still managed to hire group of assassins coordinated by corrupted FBI agent Bryant (William Moseley - The Chronicles of Narnia movies, The Royals TV series etc).
The Courier now had no choice but try and save Nick while trying to save herself from being captured by Agent Bryant who was running out of time.
End of Brief Story Line
After watching this movie, I was surprised with the amount of action which were quite significant and intense. I actually enjoyed the performance of Olga Kurylenko who showed great skill and move in the hand to hand combat and various fight scenes. The finale fight was also pretty awesome, although there were few scenes which I thought were a bit overkill, like the continuous shooting on something which frankly was a bit too much. The violent fight scenes were certainly the highlight and deserved the R rating it was given and 17+ in Indonesia.
The premise itself was actually very simple where a bad guy assigned assassins to kill a key witness. Sounds very familiar for those action movie fans. But the writers somehow chose to make it complicated by adding twists and surprises which were a bit OK at first but the final twist was totally awful. I honestly thought that part really ruined the movie for me, especially with the illogicality. In addition, a bit of drama that was included was not really necessary as it totally took out the mysteriousness of our main lead. Probably the movie maker would make us feel attached with the character, which I personally thought was a wrong move.
I said above that Olga Kurylenko was awesome in here and I also thought Amit Shah was OK as he provided a bit of light humor with his remarks. Gary Oldman sadly did not get a role that suit his acting capability, not to mention short screen time in here. There was the appearance of Dermot Mulroney as well which was unimpressive. In addition to those, there were also minor characters whom I thought did not leave any impression, in fact it would not make any difference even if the movie did not have them, like Manning's daughter Alys (Calli Taylor) and Agent Parlow (Craig Conway).
Overall this could have been a good enough action movie with the performance of Olga Kurylenko but it was ruined by bad writing, and hate to say it, poor acting by some of the cast who were supposed to do better (worst to me was William Moseley). Even the real minor roles like people in the court room were terrible. So if you are looking for good quality action movie, this one certainly not it. But if you are OK to focus on the action and a bit of intensity, while disregarding other aspects, then this could be an option. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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