Killers (2010)

Starring: Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Selleck, Rob Riggle, Casey Wilson, Catherine O’Hara, Alex Borstein, Kevin Sussman, and Usher
Grade: D+

I’m surprised Tom Selleck isn’t cast more as the dad not impressed by anything his son-in-law does. He’s very good at it.

Summary

After just breaking up with her boyfriend, Jen (Heigl) goes on vacation to Nice, France with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kornfeldt (Selleck and O’Hara). At the same time, talented assassin Spencer Aimes (Kutcher) travels to the same area to kill a target. Jen and her parents finally get to the hotel and once Jen separates from her family for a bit, she runs into a shirtless Spencer on the elevator. After an initial awkward interaction (Spencer started to speak French to her, thinking she was a local), they start to flirt a little bit and agree to meet up later that night. After Spencer kills his target and plants a bomb on some helicopter, he meets up with Jen at an outside restaurant. It goes well until Jen spots her parents. To avoid the embarrassment of telling Spencer she’s on vacation with her mother and father, she lies and tells Spencer that her father is some perverted Russian diplomat following her. Because of this, and the fact that Spencer blows up the aforementioned helicopter above them with the push of a button, they decide to go out to a club. Later, they head back to the hotel room, and they start to get close. Though just as Spencer explains to her how he’s a professional killer, Jen falls asleep from all of the alcohol that night and doesn’t hear him.

Well, at least she got to explain to him that her dad is actually her dad and not a Russian pervert.

By the way, during this little vacation, Spencer quits his job, despite his boss Holbrook (Martin Mull) telling him this isn’t an option. Following this, Spencer and Jen start dating. As more time goes by, Spencer asks Jen’s father permission to ask for her hand in marriage. Even though Mr. Kornfeldt is hesitant, he agrees. Three years later, life is seemingly perfect for Spencer and Jen. However, when Jen gets Spencer tickets to Nice, France for his birthday, he doesn’t seem too excited. He seems perfectly happy to stay at home, perplexing Jen. At work, Jen is offered a potentially huge opportunity at her job to speak at some conference in San Francisco, but the problem is that she would have to leave the next day which incidentally is Spencer’s birthday. She accepts the job though because it’s too good to pass up. At Spencer’s work (now unrelated to killing), he talks to his co-worker and friend Henry (Riggle). After Henry leaves the room though, Spencer goes through some mail and sees a postcard from Holbrook that invites him to visit.

Uh oh…

Jen talks to her friends at lunch, and they tell her their relationship is in a rut. Meanwhile, Spencer calls Holbrook and tells him he’s still retired, but the man insists on another job. In the middle of the conversation, Mr. Kornfeldt interrupts, ready to take Spencer out to dinner for his birthday. He reads Spencer’s postcard and questions it, implying he knows Spencer is hiding something. Kornfeldt rides home with him, so he can get some clothes for the night, but it all ends up being for a surprise birthday party for our lovable former assassin. After a great party, Spencer and Jen talk but the way Spencer acts, it makes it seem like he’s cheating, especially with how much he wants her to start packing to get ready for her business trip. He sees her out the next day and looks incredibly suspicious as he says goodbye. Jen starts driving to the airport but after a conversation with her parents on the phone, she decides to drive back to the house. Henry, who fell asleep on the couch after the party, tries to kill Spencer. It turns out he’s secretly a fellow assassin and there’s a twenty-million-dollar bounty on Spencer’s head. In the midst of all of this, Jen walks back into the house.

Well, the secret is out.

Spencer comes clean and now they have to be on the lookout because anyone in the neighborhood may very well be an assassin ready to collect. This not only puts Spencer in danger but Jen too.

My Thoughts:

Poor Ashton Kutcher…

This man has twice had the unfortunate luck of starring in a movie with the exact same premise as a much more popular one, in the same calendar year. In 2011, he did it when he was in No Strings Attached while his future wife Mila Kunis starring in the much better Friends with Benefits. In 2010, we see Kutcher in Killers with Katherine Heigl, when less than a month later Tom Cruise starred with Cameron Diaz in the much more successful Knight and Day. What sucks even more is that Kutcher’s two films came out before the other one’s that did it better. They had no excuse. In both cases, his films just weren’t nearly as good.

Now, Killers isn’t horrible. Is it dull, generic, and a major disappointment? Sure, but I thought it had some pros.

Let me start with Kutcher. He’s always very likable as a lead, and though he’s not going to offer some crazy nuanced performance, he can be a lot of fun in the right circumstances with the right co-star. Katherine Heigl is at her most likable here. I’m not a huge fan of Heigl, so this is why her role stood out more positively than usual. She tones down the argumentative, annoying persona she has cultivated over the years and is able to show more of the fun side of her personality. In previous films, Heigl always seems to be arguing just to argue, but as Jen, her arguing about the situation they’re in is actually warranted and amusing at times. Because of this, she gives us a solid performance. Together, the two make a decent couple. They do a solid job at making you want to see them succeed, which is always the goal in a light-hearted action comedy like this. Kutcher also plays a pretty decent action hero. This may be random, but how come he’s not cast in more action films? He’s got the look for it and with his charm, he should at the very least be in a lot more action comedies, right? I feel like we’re missing the boat here. I’m not saying he’s got Arnold Schwarzenegger potential, but there’s no reason why he couldn’t be right around what Matthew McConaughey did back in the day. I don’t know. Maybe this is me grasping at straws, but I think I have a point here.

As you may have expected, Killers isn’t the most original film. We’ve seen this premise done quite a few times and better in almost all cases. This doesn’t mean this film is devoid of laughs. It’s got some funny scenes and moments, and a couple of well-matched leads that make this movie a bit more than it deserves to be. Alas, it’s clear the negatives outweigh the positives. It’s never consistently funny. It’s good-natured and light-hearted, but it’s not nearly as funny or interesting as it needs to be.

Also, not enough happens.

We start out with some international flavor to open the film but when we’re in the middle of the story and in the more intense moments, it’s all in suburbia. Most of the action takes place either in the neighborhood or somewhere in this small town. No exciting locations or set pieces are used whatsoever. This was probably because the writers wanted to set this film apart from other similarly themed films, trying to make extraordinary things happen in this ordinary place. If this was the goal, I understand because it’s admirable to attempt this. Unfortunately, they don’t pull it off. It’s a respectable idea, but nothing truly big happens to where it seemed like the idea was worth it. There was nothing impressive regarding the action sequences. It was very “been there, done that”. Part of the issue could be rooted in the fact that there’s never a single moment where I think these characters don’t survive the situation they’re in. Obviously, I would like them to survive, but you have to tease me a bit, so I get excited as a viewer. The climax didn’t even feel like the big moment it should’ve been either. I’m not asking for some gritty, brutal fight that pushes into R-rated territory, I’m just asking for something bigger. I needed more tension, especially for an ending to a film about assassins.

In the end, we get hit with this wild twist that despite the big reveal, felt sort of anticlimactic because you knew they weren’t going to go any further than that. I think this hurt the film as well. It was an interesting twist, but the conclusion the characters come up with felt too simple, making me think “That was it?”.

To make a simple action comedy fulfill its entertainment value, you have to go over-the-top with the action, or the comedy and the dialogue have to make up for the action’s shortcomings. In a perfect world, you get both, but the bar was low with Killers. Even then, they failed on both accounts. Along with my many issues with the run-of-the-mill action sequences, there was nothing truly engaging about the characters or the conversations between them. There are still some laughs, and there’s still some entertaining moments, but my problem is how satisfied they were with being average. They didn’t try as hard as they could’ve with the concept, or the characters and their relationship, and it showed.

I wasn’t mad, just disappointed.

Killers is a light-hearted action comedy that was just a little too basic for its own good. Though it may be entertaining for some simple viewers that don’t complain too much, taking zero chances hurt the potential of the movie. It just comes and goes and that’s it. It’s fun at times, but just not fun enough unfortunately.