Deadly
bore
Jason
Statham doesn't do much acting; in every one of his pictures you see
a sullen mouth under a pair of seriously peeved eyes, well-hidden by
an imposing crag of a brow. Hero or villain, there's something pure
about Statham; you can always rely on him to move into action with
all the agility (and lack of humor) of a menopausal Jackie Chan. And
you can count on him to do it with the graceless lack of enthusiasm
of a bored anthropoid--that's Statham in a nutshell.
That
view of Statham was seriously challenged in The Bank Job
(2008), an ostensibly routine crime thriller-slash-true-story that
under the hands of veteran director Roger Donaldson turned out better
than anyone expected--Donaldson captured the gritty reality of '70s
London, and in Statham captures the chip-on-the-shoulder class
resentment felt by many blue-collar workers at the time (still do, I suspect). Statham's
acting here was a startling bonus; who knew he could play low-key
smolder well, without once resorting to his larger-than-life
action-movie persona? He's so good one actually worries for him when
he's being threatened--unlike in his other pictures where a threat is
usually prelude to broken wrists, shattered kneecaps, cracked skulls.
Come
the rest of his career (Death Race (2008) and all the Crank
and Transporter sequels) and no, apparently this breakthrough
role didn't signal a significant change in the actor's career--he's
still out there breaking wrists and cracking skulls. He did deliver a
touch of irony while starring in The Expendables--compared to
actors like Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren he's still
relatively young and flexible, and his usual sullen expression
suggested he didn't deserve to dawdle with such over-the-hill
company.
Otherwise--nada;
nothing. By the time of The Killer Elite (2011), that intense
burst of lower-class realism has pretty much vanished into memory,
and there is little apparent hope watching him enter this picture
that any of it will be recovered here--he's still Statham, he's still
fast and flexible, but there's precious little going on beneath those
brows save the trademark annoyed glare, the implied threat that he's
going to screw you up seriously if you keep staring at him.
The
only ghost of an interesting drama or romance or anything occurs when
Statham fetches up against Clive Owen who, unlike Statham, can
actually act. Owen's glare suggests genuine danger, complicated by
intelligence and a sense of humor; once in a while you catch his
mouth edging towards a grin, but it doesn't soften his glare--if
anything, it makes him look a tad psycho, as if he'd not just break
your wrist but laugh long and loud in the process. Owen--who can
upstage Statham with the bat of an eyelash, is apparently too
threatening; the producers must have decided to dampen his charisma
by gluing a dead caterpillar to his upper lip (you don't for a moment
feel like wondering why he looks so glum). Said offending facial hair
almost does in Owen's performance--almost. All he has to do is glare
a little wider and twist that grin a few millimeters higher, and he's
as intimidating as ever.
It's
not a bad film, per se; Gary McKendry, an Aussie director making his
feature debut, does not strictly adhere to the Paul Greengrass-style
of handheld footage cut chop-suey style (case in point: the Jason
Bourne movies); he is especially adept at chase sequences and the one
major car chase he stages late in the picture ends with a startlingly
crunchy surprise. The endless first encounter between Owen and
Statham, however, is too closely shot to be coherent; it starts
feeling seriously dull when you don't know what's going on--haven't
for some time. McKendry does seem to have a feel for the kind of
British military machismo (well, Aussie--the picture was shot Down
Under) you find hanging out in expatriate bars, and the like. You can
imagine the crowd consisting of old friends who have worked together
as a team for years, in far less friendly locales...
The
veracity question I can't care less about. The movie is based on
all-around adventurer and novelist Ranulph Fiennes' The Feather
Men,” which he describes as a “factional” work where it's left
to the reader to decide what is fact and what not. Frankly, I find
the coyness annoying.
Overall
it should have been a terrific thriller; if I'm less than
enthusiastic that may be because the whole enterprise has the
aura--or stink, rather--of a by-the-numbers effort. Even Sam
Peckinpah's less stellar films brim over with personality, case in
point being his late picture of the same title (borrowed, apparently,
without proper attribution).
Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975) if anything makes even less sense, a
wildly unlikely mix of rival CIA factions and gratuitous martial
arts--if I prefer Peckinpah's over this picture that's because
Peckinpah's for all its flaws (it's an ugly-spirited late work)
seethes with hate and fury (at what you're not quite sure: corrupt
government factions? Equally corrupt film studio bosses?), and that
hate is reflected in the martial arts fight sequences, the blows
lovingly extended to savor their impact on human flesh. Statham's
movie doesn't have that kind of emotion; when I try remember any part
of it I come up with a long, undistinguishable blur.
First published at Businessworld, 10.20.11
