"Killer Elite" Review

I almost forgot to review that I saw this movie. (It's two days later.) That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

Jason Statham and Robert De Niro are mercenaries in 1980. After a rough gig, Statham quits the biz and moves to Australia where he is repairing an old schoolhouse and making googly eyes at the chick from Chuck (whom I didn't recognize) whom I think he went to school with or something. A year after his retirement, a package arrives with a photo of De Niro showing he's being held hostage. He was hired by a sheik in Oman and failed and Statham has to complete his mission to kill three British SAS (the British version of Delta Force) men who killed the sheik's sons in battle. For some reason, Statham has to get confessions from them and make their deaths look like accidents. When one of Statham's crew is overheard nosing around a SAS bar, a local secret society of ex-SAS men dispatches Clive Owen to investigate and stop the killings. Little does he know that it's all going to be so dull.

I don't even care to hash out everything that's wrong with the misleadingly-named Killer Elite other than to say its neither. The politics of the caper are too obscure. It says it's based on true events, but we all know that means that England and Oman are real countries and everything else is BS. I found it hard to remain engaged and even the usual Statham ass-kicking antics don't elevate the proceedings much. I'm done here. Move along.

Score: 3/10. Skip it.



Watching the trailer now really makes me marvel at how misleading it is. It really implies waaaaay more action and interaction than really happens. Heh.