Killer Elite

The film brings together a pretty solid lineup of action stars, with Robert De Niro standing out the most. Jason Statham, as usual, sticks to his same old moves, and the story isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But on the plus side, there’s plenty of action, and it easily earns three stars for that alone. It’s a decent watch, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded if it was trimmed down to 80 minutes of pure action, instead of dragging on for 116 minutes with some unnecessary filler. (2012-08-20)

Thanks to the storyline additions in the second half, this movie seems longer than it actually is. But thanks to the greater presence of Clive Owen’s character, the second half is better than the uninteresting and boring first half. Without Owen, who is a worthy adversary for Jason Statham, the movie stagnates at first. De Niro’s presence is just for show. Using a blonde in strange rubber boots in an attempt to humanize Statham’s character slows the movie down unnecessarily. The action scenes are nothing out of the ordinary. The old-school atmosphere is fine; Gary McKendry is clearly a fan of John Frankenheimer. (2011-10-16)

When someone has such aces in their hands, like Jason Statham, Clive Owen, but primarily Robert De Niro, it must take talent to not make something worthwhile out of it. Gary McKendry showed that such potential can easily be killed, without even batting an eye. Well, he had a story in his hands that wants to present itself as a political thriller with lots of killers, but in reality, it's a shooter set in the 80s, which one can basically only tell by the fact that most guys have a mustache or heavily overgrown sideburns. However, I still think that the director should be there to give it some juice if he finds it boring. McKendry obviously refused to put more into the film than necessary. He chose great actors, made a few nice scenes, especially action scenes, but everything drowned in a single plotline that completely lacks twists. I basically saw the film as a flatline that appears on the monitor when a patient dies. At first, it may have seemed like defibrillation would work, but in the end, the doctors had to confirm that the patient was dead and nothing would help him. It only remained to cover him with a blanket and record the time of death. What a pity. Robert De Niro has several great scenes. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/07/runaways-rok-jedna-nedotknutelni-johnny.html (2013-02-22)

Compared to the trailers, it's quite a decent bit of entertainment, which is surprisingly brought down by not being as dumb as it originally looked. However, the grafting of a tangled plot, with political intrigue in the background, onto a through-and-through B-movie concept, brings down the impressions quite dramatically, although in each position separately the film is quite decent. Statham's physical abilities have once again found proper use for once, and De Niro is finally in a role that suits him after a hell of a long time. In the end, we are left with a decent silly film that doesn't completely offend but also leaves us with a slightly awkward impression from the two-hour runtime. (2011-11-15)

When something looks and functions like a B-movie, then it is a B-movie. The concept could have been handled more seriously and could have resulted in a significant sociopolitical drama in the style of Paul Greengrass' works, but Gary McKendry chose the path of pure entertainment. Killer Elite is one of the few cases where I not only don't mind the genre definition of a B-action film, but I also actually quite enjoy it. The solid cast also plays a part in that, with Jason Statham capable of delivering a performance and Clive Owen being at the top of his game. The title represents essentially the same thing to me as, say, Commando does to someone else (which would be unbearably dull for me). I enjoyed the battle between mercenaries and members of the elite British SAS, and for that, I will reward it with a 75% overall impression. (2015-10-07)