Review of 3 Days to Kill (2014) by Tom R — 17 Jun 2014

(2 Stars) There's something to nitpick in every scene in 3 Days To Kill. From little things like why does Kevin Costner's daughter give him such a goofy ringtone to huge plot points like, why is that guy who Kevin Costner just tortured now best buddies with him? It is so ludicrously inconsistent, always balancing between a stark action drama like Taken and a goofy, bloody family romp like The Family. You can't have both and expect the movie to be good.

There are huge issues everywhere you look, like Amber Heard's oversexualized portrayal of a CIA assassin and Costner's wife who you forget is a movie character because she disappears so much. And there's Costner's terminal brain cancer, which only seems to strike at its worst when he's chasing a bad guy and suddenly gets better with vodka. And the brain cancer "antidote" looks like soy sauce in a cartoonishly large syringe. There's a father/daughter relationship between Costner and Hailee Steinfeld that goes from "I hate you, dad" to "Teach me how to ride a bike, dad" because he took her on a cool swing ride? Then there are African squatters who appear in Costner's apartment who feel like they're from a different movie. THEN the climax is at what I think is a French high school prom. And these are only a few of the confusing elements, there's something every two minutes that makes you say "ok, what the hell?".

But there's something I strangely admire about 3 Days To Kill though because it tries to cover all these bases. The action is very good and I somehow like Costner in this movie. And honestly, all this nitpicking kept me entertained for nearly two hours. It feels like it should be a direct-to-video action movie, but it's really good junk.