God bless Jason Statham. You can see he's trying to pick projects that rise above the bog standard action bullshit fare like The Expendables and The Transporter and do something that's a little more serious and a little more adult in tone...but he's no quite there yet. Even with a script based on a true story and actors of the caliber of Clive Owen and Robert De Niro to support him, Killer Elite still hovers firmly in the genre of bullshit action.
It's a solid action thriller that eventually has Statham and Owen going head to head (in the best parts of the film. Although Owen is set up as the bad gut, it's great to see the actor pull off a character that is sympathetic and who you also want to see succeed. Chuck actress Yvonne Strahovski gets the thankless girlfriend in peril role, although it's nice to see her perform in her native (and far cuter) Ozzie accent.
There's some great location work (Australia, Omar, London) and some subtle but convincing retro production design (it's set in 1980) but this fails to rise above the standard Statham film like The Mechanic or Blitz. At the end of the day Statham is Statham and whatever he makes I'm sure he'll be great in it, but to break the cycle he's either going to have to make Crank 3 or make a pack with Michael Bay to make the most expensive bullshit action movie ever filmed. Transformers 4 anyone?
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