Killer Elite [Blu-ray]

Having missed this movie when it hit the cinemas, I watched Killer Elite last night at home on dvd. The fact I then made the effort to jump onto Amazon to write a review should tell you it's a decent movie straight away. If you are unfamiliar with Jason Statham movies, or just action movies in general, there are a few simple rules to adhere to in order to get maximum enjoyment from them:

1) Statham plays the "same" character in almost every single one of his movies. If you're going into a Statham movie expecting him to read Shakespeare, leave now and don't waste your 90 minutes.
2) It's an action film first and everything else second. Meaning the plot will have holes (for an assassin, 'the welshman' here is less reliable than a shotgun with chocolate bullets..), there will be countless errors in realism (set in the eighties, but notice the cafe prices in Euros..) If you go into an action movie and want to review things like that then you shoudn't be watching it as you're clearly looking for ways to put it down or feel good about yourself.

Jason Statham is doing the kind of thing we, as action fans, used to appreciate from the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Damme. Every one of his movies is familiar to the last and the plot could be picked apart by over-analytical, self appointed critic types but the fact is we don't care. Commando (the most terrible movie of all time in terms or realism, plot holes and character development) stands as one of the greatest action movies ever made. That tells the story here. He provides great action movies on dvd regularly and this is another one. He ain't never gonna win an Oscar but this is watchable and fun for guys.

Get a pizza, watch this and have some good proper 'man film' entertainment.

Sharing a title but nothing more with one of Sam Peckinpah's very worst films, 2011's Killer Elite claims to be based on a true story that in fact turned out to be a particularly unpleasant bit of opportunism from explorer Ranulph Fiennes exploiting the deaths of family friends to sell a generic thriller novel. While Fiennes is a minor character in the film, the script reworks his story substantially and changes the focus from the intended victims (the good guys) to their killers (the bad guys). Only here the killers aren't all bad guys and their victims are all scumbags to try to take some of the sting out of their deaths, which happen offscreen just to soften the blow still further. That's not the only change: rather than a group of Arab communist assassins targeting serving SAS officers over a period of 17 years in revenge for the death of a powerful Sheik's sons in the war in Oman while a shadowy group of ex-SAS vigilantes try to stop them, now we have Jason Statham's conflicted ex-mercenary reluctantly drawn back into one last job to save the life of his mentor Robert De Niro by carrying out the killings over a few weeks with covert help from the British government while Clive Owen's ineffectual `featherman' tries to stop him.

Right from the start this leaves the film with a huge problem: with everyone in the movie a bastard, who exactly are we supposed to root for? The film does try to give Statham some moral qualms about what he's doing, but it never rings true and plays just as contrived as the redundant romance with Yvonne Strahovski that's randomly thrown in for a minute or two between killings to show that he really does have some feelings. But a bigger problem is why should we care about anything that happens when it plods through its clichéd plot and frequently clumsy dialogue ("We don't want to get blood on our pinstripes") in such a dreary fashion. It may have some pretensions to be a smarter than average thriller, but its government conspiracy subplot never holds water even after a disposable supporting character helpfully explains it before getting killed and the film resolutely ignores any moral quandaries or anything else that might possibly be interesting.

Statham is decent enough, Owen more competent than usual and Strahovski good enough to deserve a better part, though the biggest surprise is that for once De Niro doesn't totally suck in one of his just-for-the-money roles. Following the ignominy of his acrimonious departure from the Mel Gibson remake of Edge of Darkness on his first day of filming, he seems to have got the message, upped his game slightly and is a little bit more alert in his glorified cameo than in recent films: we're not talking Raging Bull here or even Ronin, but at least he isn't sleepwalking through it without even making any effort to hide his disdain. This time it's the film itself that seems to be just walking in its sleep. It's professionally put together but the plot is less than compelling and the unimaginative action scenes that are few and far between aren't terribly exciting either aside from a brief scrap between a handcuffed Owen and a tied-to-a-chair Statham, although it's probably worth the price of a rental just to see Clive Owen get punched in the balls with extreme prejudice. It's just a shame you have to sit through such a flat film to see it.

As usual it's only the Blu-ray that gets extras, and a thin lot too - brief interview with Statham, 24-minute puff piece making of featurette and trailer.

I was undecided whether to give this film 4 or 5 star. In the end it gets 5 because I don't think there's any other film out there like it.

If I put my mind to it, sure I could probably think of one, but the heady mix of a brilliant cast, incredible action, fantastic performances, a thrilling story line with lots of different layers to it, a stylised, British backdrop and the fact that it's based on a true story, makes Killer Elite feel very special.

Based on events on Sir Ranulph Fiennes' famous book, The Feather Men, the film follows a team of hit men tasked with taking out a group of ex sas servicemen, who were caught up in the messy business of the secret war in Oman.

As with any Statham film, expect high octane action with energetic performances, but where as lot of his other films lack any sort of cerebral story line, Killer Elite definitely benefits from one.

There's a brilliant supporting cast which includes Deniro and Clive Owen, who suits the role of an ex regiment soldier perfectly and really looks the part.

The Blu Ray transfer looked good but the disc lacked any worthwhile extras, with only a making of documentary and a token but pointless interview with Statham. Still, I wouldn't let the lack of extras put you off.

Admittedly, this sort of film is right up my street (I have an interest in ex servicemen, mercenary work and soldiers or fortune etc.) but leaving my biases aside, it's still the best SAS flick I've seen in years and beats Who Dares Wins any day of the week.

Overall, I was left feeling there was something quite special abut this film and enjoyed the peek it gave me into the very shadowy world of government sanctioned killings and contract 'cleaners'.