Director: John Woo
Authors: Brian Helgeland, Josh Campbell, Matt Pieces
Stars: Nathalie Emmanuel, Omar Sy, Sam Worthington
Summary: An assassin tries to make amends by restoring the sight of a beautiful young singer.
The most astonishing aspect of The Killer is that the filmmakers are trying to make their audience believe that Jenn (Diana Silvers), an American singer who was involved with drug dealers in Paris, wrote a song. The song that Sey (Omar Sy), a police officer on the drug dealers' case, claims nobody knows and can't be found on Shazam. It's a very famous song. It's the song “Let's Live for Today” by The Grass Roots. The song has sold a million copies. It's been featured in many films set in the '60s. The song itself is an English-language cover of an Italian song. It's a well-known song. What possible reason could the filmmakers have for trying to pass it off as something else?
Maybe it's because this film is a kind of imitation of the original 1989 film. The saddest thing is that the producers brought the original filmmaker John Woo on board. This is not the first time this has happened. Alfred Hitchcock made a film called The man who knew too much and 22 years later he released another version with the same title, but with bigger stars, a bigger budget and a story that showcased the stars' talents better than the original. Unlike The man who knew too much, The Killer of 2024, was produced by a major studio that invested no more money in the film than it did in an indie film it acquired from another company. It's no wonder Universal released it on Peacock instead of releasing it in theaters.
Despite the CGI carnage and harsh language, the film looks like it belongs on the USA Network. The cameras and lights used make the film look like we forgot to turn off the motion smoothing on our TV after watching a live event. It's bright and has absolutely no texture. While composer Marco Beltrami is reminiscent of the original film's score most of the time, he sometimes slips into absolutely cheesy elevator comedy, making the film seem like the “straight to DVD/VOD/streaming” type of thing that it is.
Director John Woo has lost his touch. There are plenty of flashbacks and examples of his favorite cliches like birds, abandoned buildings, motorcycles, and gunfights; but instead of going to eleven, it's about four. It's like someone took away his joy in choreographed chaos. He's fallen into the trap of many action movies that try to show the action in live close-up and cut so fast that you really don't know what's going on because the next frame doesn't always match the previous one. The gunfights are less surgical, the hand-to-hand combat less precise, and there weren't enough cool slow-motion moves that ooze sophistication and consideration.
However, there are things that still work. Most notably, the chemistry between Sey and Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel) is absolutely fantastic. The two together are electric and their banter is easygoing and has the right amount of sexual tension mixed with mutual respect. If the narrative had focused more on them rather than the convoluted case the two are working on from opposite sides, this would have been a much more entertaining film.
The same could be said of Sam Worthington as Finn, a lieutenant in a criminal organization. Why did studios waste so much time in the 2010s making the wooden and lethargic Worthington a leading man? Here he is calculating, scheming, terrifying and actually believable. His cold blue eyes belie his character's machinations. He plays a villain very well and we can only hope he expands his repertoire in this area.
Although the plot is stunted and the film as a whole feels cheap, the action is exciting and the characters are intriguing. It doesn't have the verve of his previous films, but John Woo, while stylistically restrained to the film's detriment, can still deliver a shootout in an abandoned church that is incredibly tense and features incredible maneuvers and tricks. It's a shame that he's no longer the filmmaker he once was, and that he doesn't take the risks he used to. All in all, if you just need an action movie after a boring week at work, then this is the film for you. The Killer is not a bad way to spend two hours, but if you want to see something gloriously and blatantly over the top with the filmmaker at the height of his renaissance, look for the original The Killer from 1989.
