Review of 3 Days to Kill (2014) by Chad Q — 02 Oct 2014

Yeah, I don't know. I've seen plenty of Kevin Costner movies, and I'm well aware of his, er, limitations. And maybe I'm in the minority, but I think that if the role he's playing meets those limitations, then he can be a fine actor. His role in 3 Days to Kill, as a CIA killer trying to reconnect with his estanged daughter, is not one of those roles. What we have here is a sentimental action movie that requires a fair amount of emoting - even for an assassin - and that's just not Kevin Costner's idiom.

Ethan Renner (Costner) is dying, and his doctor gives him three months to live. Ethan sets up a will with his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) with the promise that she not tell their teenage daughter Zoe (Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit). Ethan, who has all the personality of a bowl of oatmeal and a name straight out of Spy Movie Screenwriting 101, wants to slip back into his (resentful) daughter's life after leaving her and her mother five years prior, and he figures that since they're all in the same city (Paris, of course), he'll get that chance.

But then the cliches and stock characters really pile up. Ethan is cornered by another CIA agent, a Vivi (Amber Heard), who says she has a super-secret drug that'll cure Ethan's malady, but in exchange she wants him to find the notorious, the nefarious Albino and his boss, The Wolf. He has three days to find the men and bring them to justice - one way or another! - and simultaneously watching over Zoe while her mom is away on business.

Asking the stone-faced Costner to do much other than appear disinterested is a tall order, and it doesn't help that the two villains are both lame, generic knockoffs. So the action part isn't very...well, active. The dramatic part, the tension between Zoe and her dad, is a bit better, but even it is hampered by a way-too-snotty attitude on the part of the teen that abruptly morphs into a sweet little lamb. In fact, all three female leads (Nielsen, Heard, Steinfeld) are fun to watch, picking up the tempo and the mood of each scene in which they appear, which sadly isn't all of them.

Costner being Costner is fine for some movies, like Open Range or Bull Durham, but when the script requires more personality, he's just not the optimal choice. 3 Days to Kill, though, isn't interesting enough to distinguish itself from others of its kind, even if Costner's sleepy performance is factored out.