Tag: Hitman

Fast Charlie

2023   Vertical Entertainment

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  30min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Romance ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Phillip Noyce

Starring:  Pierce Brosnan, Morena Baccarin and James Caan.

Keep your friends close and your enemies dead.

Charlie Swift (Pierce Brosnan), aka Fast Charlie, is an experienced hitman working for a longtime mob boss named Stan (James Caan). Charlie is sent on a job with newbie Blade to take out a man named Rollo. Blade has planted a bomb in a box of doughnuts thinking it a genius idea, but things go wrong when the box detonates and blows Rollo’s head to smithereens. Without Rolo’s head it is impossible for Charlie to prove to the sanction of the hit, Beggar Mercado, that the hit was successful. To solve this problem, Charlie enlists the help of Marcie Kramer (Morena Baccarin), who is Rollo’s tough and calm ex-wife. She confirms the body by recognizing a tattoo, and now he has to figure out a way to convince Beggar that Rollo is dead.

Meanwhile, the young and reckless new hitman named Blade has decided to turn on Charlie and take the body and blackmail Beggar with it. When Blade dies in a chaotic accident trying to get away in Charlie’s car, Charlie cuts off Blade’s head and works with Marcie to transfer the tattoo onto Blade’s body so they can pass it off as Rollo’s, faking the proof Beggar needs. When Charlie meets Beggar with the body, he takes the bait convinced it is Rollo, and promptly chucks the body into the swamp and the alligators. He tells Charlie that he wants to meet with his boss Stan, and discuss business. When Charlie tells Stan, he tells Charlie that he wants nothing to do with Beggar…….

Which starts off a chain reaction of action and violence as Beggar tries to dominate Stan’s turf and business. Charlie is apparently the only man standing as Beggar tries to wipe out Stan’s crew, but Fast Charlie and Marcie team up to outwit Beggar and his crew. And what follows is non stop action, violence, dark comedy and romance as Charlie and Marcie fight for their lives and fall in love with each other. It is a bit of Pulp Fiction, The Equalizer and The Mechanic all rolled into one. Not too surprising since Richard Wenk wrote this as well as the screenplay for The Mechanic and The Equalizer Movies.

James Caan plays the part of aging Crime Boss Stan very well. Too well, this was James Caan’s last acting role before he passed away several months later on July 6, 2022. He was 82 years old. Pierce Brosnan did a fantastic job of playing Fast Charlie right down to the accent. Brilliant work! The chemistry between Pierce and Morena felt very natural and engaging, and made the obvious age gap between them seem like nothing t’all. I really liked Morena in this, she is quickly becoming a Streaming Movie Night favorite! She also appears in 2020’s Greenland, the upcoming Sequel Greenland: Migration and Elevation.

I thought this movie was a great little gem! It checks all the boxes for me personally and it was good to see James Caan in his last role. Pierce Brosnan and Morena Baccarin make a fantastic team on screen, and it was a great ride watching them battle it out and fall in love.

Highly Recommended!

Turn off the lights and devices,

Make some popcorn,

Grab a beverage,

and Stream This Movie

on NETFLIX!

The Equalizer

THE EQUALIZER TRILOGY: STORY & TIMELINE

Elevation

Old Guy

2025   The Avenue

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  34min

Action ~ Comedy

Directed by: Simon West

Starring:  Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, and Cooper Hoffman.

Competition Is Always A Killer

Christoph Waltz as Danny Dolinski is the heart and headache of “Old Guy,” a hitman whose career high points are undermined by a creaky body and creeping obsolescence. The movie opens with Danny partying like a man half his age, only to quickly remind us, with a wicked hangover and arthritic hesitation, that time is no friend to aging assassins. When Danny’s ready to rejoin the world of contract killing after a hand surgery sideline, his handler Opal instead hands him insult with assignment: train Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), a Gen Z whiz kid with the fashion sense of a festival-goer and the emotional warmth of an iced latte.

Any hope for a revitalized, James Bond-style comeback fizzles as Danny and Wihlborg collide in the field—Wihlborg doesn’t drink, barely socializes, and takes killing as seriously as an avant-garde art project, all to our curmudgeonly anti-hero’s dismay. Sent to Belfast on a job that quickly unravels, Danny botches the hit thanks to his unreliable hand, forcing Wihlborg to save the day with ruthless professionalism. Despite their mutual suspicions, the two realize the gig is bigger than their personal beefs—someone inside their own organization is playing both sides, and both hitmen are rapidly moving up next on the target list themselves.

Enter Anata, played by Lucy Liu, whose nightclub serves more as a weapons depot than a party venue and whose presence complicates Danny’s feelings and loyalties. She’s no damsel, she’s the object of Danny’s unspoken affection and a wild card in the unfolding conspiracy. When the trio finds themselves caught between mob bosses and double-crossing handlers, they’re forced to rethink what loyalty, legacy, and survival really mean in the killing business.

Old Guy assembles an enviable cast; Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, and Cooper Hoffman, promising a genre-busting assassin caper with a splash of biting wit. The foundations are laid for a generational clash that should have been electric, but the set-up, brimming with potential for comedic and dramatic fireworks, instead sputters as the film drifts into predictability. The old pro and his green apprentice trade barbs and botched jobs through Belfast’s rain-slicked streets, but the banter rarely crackles, and the action beats stumble into well-worn “geezer assassin” territory. Even a mob war conspiracy and the reliable presence of Lucy Liu’s Anata, a fixer with more sense than most, can’t generate enough fresh energy to distinguish this outing from countless other streaming titles.

What’s most disappointing is how little the film does with its heavyweight cast. Waltz is clearly having fun with Danny’s self-deprecating swagger, but Lucy Liu and Cooper Hoffman are left orbiting his performance rather than building dynamic chemistry of their own. Instead of the odd-couple fireworks promised by the premise, we get tired tropes—grumpy mentor, sullen prodigy, double-crossing bosses—sketched out with dialogue that never quite sparkles and action sequences that feel recycled from more memorable films.

“Old Guy” isn’t unwatchable, thanks mostly to the professionalism of its stars and a handful of sly, self-aware moments, but at only 94 minutes it started to feel a lot longer. It’s a bland, overly familiar ride that fails to capitalize on the unique talents assembled. Given the collective charisma and experience of Waltz, Liu, and Hoffman, the finished product feels like a missed opportunity, a reminder that even the best casts can’t transcend a flat script and uninspired direction.

 

Watch at your own peril,

there are better choices out there.

Memory

2022   Open Road Films

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  54min

Action ~ Crime ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Martin Campbell

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci, Harold Torres, Taj Atwal and Ray Fearon.

“His mind is fading. His conscience is clear.”

Liam Neeson as Alex Lewis, a hired hitman living in Mexico. He takes on an assignment for a double hit that will take him to El Paso, Texas. His brother has severe Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a nursing home there. Alex leaves for El Paso and stops off to see his brother before embarking on his two contract assignments. His brother is vacant minded and doesn’t acknowledge Alex’s presence. Alex talks to him anyway and presses an old quarter from 1969 into his hand. “Remember that year?, That was a good year.” Alex kisses him on the forehead and leaves for his two assignments.

The first is Ellis Van Camp, the manager of the central processing facility for immigrants in El Paso. Alex waits for him to be alone in his house before entering and forcing Ellis to open his home safe. Alex retrieves the flash drive from Ellis before shooting him and leaves. Alex’s next hit is a young female Mexican immigrant named Beatriz. She was taken from Ellis’s processing facility and placed in a foster home by the police officer that killed her pimp, Papa Leon. Upon entering in the night and seeing that she is a young girl, Alex leaves without killing her, drawing the line at “taking out” children.

He informs his client they need to “Cancel the contract” , but they won’t have it and put out a contract on Alex. So there are three stories going on here, and I’ll try not to give out any spoilers…….

  • There is the story of Alex dealing with the fast onset of Alzheimer’s Disease and losing his memory just like his brother. And his refusal to kill the girl and his desire to kill those who hired him to kill the girl. Also his desire to kill those who exploited the young girls in the prostitution ring as he watches what’s on the flash drive.
  • There is the story of the two El Paso police officers tracking the child prostitution ring where Beatriz came from and that Alex is also pursuing.
  • There is the story of the Police Officer assigned to the case in New Mexico, out of his jurisdiction, who is actually a vigilante seeking justice for the victims of the child prostitution ring who were mostly young girls abducted from Mexico.

It is a little difficult to follow in the beginning, as you watch different scenes unfold that seemingly have no common thread. As you watch remember they are all headed for the same child prostitution ring, they just don’t know it yet. And as the movie progresses their paths all cross. As Alex’s Alzheimer progresses he is forgetting things and having to write them on his forearm. And he is taking medication that has kept it at bay until now, but the pills are no longer being effective as the disease is very aggressive.

It is not one of Liam Neeson’s best but it isn’t his worst either. It was just alright. The storyline was pretty hard to follow, I didn’t put it all together until late in the movie. The action scenes weren’t that good, nor the plot. And some of the acting by the other actors wasn’t top notch. It felt pretty discombobulated as you jump from scene to scene not knowing what they have in common.

So yes, it’s worth a watch (maybe) but it is definitely a “One-off”. I wouldn’t watch it again.

One thumb up, the other down.