Brief Story Line
Set in 1987 during the cold war between the US and Soviet Union, Troy Kelly aka Assassin (Ryan Reynolds - Deadpool & Wolverine, Free Guy etc) was an experienced US Navy pilot who was assigned to do a recon mission over Russia. Unfortunately the mission went wrong and his plane crasehd on Russian soil. Fortunately he was rescued by a Russian man named Nikolai "Nick" Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh - A Haunting in Venice, Henry V etc) who was living by himself.
To avoid capture by the KGB led by Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Jack Strong etc), Troy together with Nick who wanted to seek asylum in the US started a long journey to Moscow for extraction.
So what would happen to Troy and Nick? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was really fun. This movie started with the introduction of Troy as a highly skilled pilot and subsequently the mission assignment. But things really got interesting when he crash landed and met with Nick for the first time. From that moment onwards, the movie was filled with multiple scenes that were exciting and hilarious at the same time. As the two went on the road, there were also some actions involved, though they were not that extraordinary but still fun to watch. In any case, the movie's main attraction was the comedy arising from unlikely cooperation between US navy and Russian guy.
The humor in here was really great supported by the wonderful scenario. During closing credits I only realized that it was written and directed by John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein who were directors of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and also co-writers of Horrible Bosses, Spider-man: Homecoming etc. With such credentials, it was no surprise that this movie was also enjoyable, and a remarkable feat too considering it was not adapted from anything. Critics were impressed as well as it gotten positive review and I thought audience liked them as well.
This movie would not have been entertaining without the wonderful chemistry of Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh. Reynolds as usual was a natural in comedic role and his dialogues seemed to be perfectly written for him with so many sarcastic comments and jokes that I could almost always chuckled. It was like every words that came out of his mouth and his expressions could make me laugh. And Branagh to my surprise was able to show some good moves as well. Aside from the three names above, there were some support cast like Maria Bakalova (Creature Commandos TV series, The Apprentice etc) as Nick's daughter Anna, David Morse (We Were Liars TV series, The Negotiator etc) as Troy's father Harold, Louis Cancelmi (Killers of the Flower Moon, A Murder at the End of the World TV series etc) as Major Pete Sanders (there was one dialogue between him and Troy that was also hilarious) and several others in minor roles.
The duration of this movie was 111 minutes including closing credits. There was one brief & funny mid end credit scene that was related to the things mentioned in earlier. The music here was a joy for me as they were from the 1980s which I personally considered as golden age, with some songs from the film Top Gun that was highlighted few times. The action comedy was nicely done with more emphasis on the comedy. I loved the fight scenes here that were not extremely violent and also the camera angle during the chasing scenes, but somehow the 80s settings did not looked too strong for me.
Overall this was an enjoyable action comedy film that was really worth to watch. I am glad that I decided to see this even if it was not a brand new release. It certainly made up for not being able to see movies in the cinemas yesterday. So if you are in the mood for some fun time watching Ryan Reynolds doing what he does best together with Kenneth Branagh in a completely different role from his Hercule Poirot recent roles, then you can definitely give this a try. Got to hand it to Apple TV for their eye on producing good quality movies. Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment