Review of 3 Days to Kill (2014) by Orlando O — 16 Jun 2014

3 Days to Kill is a mindless entertaining action thriller that fails to connect with any source of a plot involving a professional CIA agent being forced back into the field while trying to maintain a healthy family relationship. It is entertaining and has some decent fun humor but there is no real backbone to a story.

Ethan (Kevin Costner) is good at what he does as a CIA field agent who is to capture an arms trafficker known as "the wolf." He fails to capture them but soon tries to put the job behind him when he is slowly dying by cancer. He tries to reconnect with his wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and his daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld) after his absence due to working for the CIA. Until Vivi (Amber Heard), she tries to persuade him to work for her to go after "the wolf," and she will try to save him with an experimental drug.

It has a few clichés with the plot like characters conveniently having a drug that can help the character dying, and a story about him going after the terrorist group with no sense of their plan besides being caught in a crossfire with Ethan every time. Is the story supposed to come together fully? Maybe not for this type of movie, with the bad guys being there for Ethan to chase or shoot at. The dramatic moments with Ethan connecting with the family was okay, it had some enjoyable parts. It eventually slowed the movie down by sidetracking from the plot nor did it have any development.

Kevin Costner, Amber Heard and Hailee Steinfeld were all okay. Heard played the mysterious elite assassin but unbelievable as a character. Like I said, it does not matter for this type of movie that is aiming for entertainment instead of being realistic.

McG did decent with his work on the movie. He can set up an exciting action sequences or shoot outs with quick cuts but is terrible when it comes to handling a family drama in this thriller. It just never felt like the characters in the drama were developed completely. 3 Days to Kill is a fair action thriller, if you are looking for some quirky humor and a simple action flick.