Review of Killer Elite (2011) by Tomas T — 21 Apr 2012

The current Hollywood tough guy - Jason Statham - pairs up with some serious company to provide action entertainment for the masses in Killer Elite. The let down is great when realization kicks in that Killer Elite is more of a non-sense drama than a cool action film.

The Killer Elite's simplistic story serves as a perfect ruse for some no-brainer entertainment. What better excuse for loads of unreal martial art action and high speed car chases than to send an ex-special ops agent Danny (J.Statham) on a crazy vengeance mission to eliminate some elite British SAS soldiers.

The cast is great, Statham being a terrific choice for the role of remorseful hitman looking a way out from life of violence, and DeNiro is more than fitting for Statham's older mentor. On the other side we have Clive Owen as a cunning ex-SAS officer providing good counterweight for the relentless Statham. Owen and Statham have a great chemistry going on through the film and all their confrontations amp up the tension levels each time. So Killer Elite has it all to make it into a great action film, but manages to miss the mark almost completely as it lacks the obvious, Action!! Sure the film has couple car chases and some other action scenes here and there, but they seem only to serve wake up the audience between the boring and lengthy drama scenes.

Killer Elite should have been kickass adrealine rush flick with zero boring scenes in it, but instead it turned out as a mediocre drama story with some action elements.The going gets better towards the end of the film, but at that stage the damage is already done.