If you like your characters to sport monikers like Donut (“don’t call me Donut”) or Blade (not that Blade, obviously) or The Freak (“get me The Freak”) and like to see death dealt out in novel fashion – taxidermized bird beak through the eye, beer bottle through the mouth, and an update on the Magnum .357 “blow your head clean off” trope – then this one is for you. Not to mention the riffs on Quentin Tarantino and John Wick. And, here’s the kicker, a delicate meditation on old age and father-son relationships.
Your first port of marquee call, of course, should be star Pierce Brosnan. Not the Abba-magnet of Mamma Mia (2008), and far removed from James Bond, but with a hint of the clever machination of The Thomas Crown Affair remake (1999). You might regard his character as a common-or-garden retired hitman now doing business as a chauffeur to a younger generation of hitmen (step up Donut) but he tends to see himself as a “problem-solver” or even “concierge” (as though we might be talking The Continental Hotel). I suspect Brosnan was drawn to the script for the “cowboy draw” soliloquy that has echoes of the gold watch in Pulp Fiction (1994).
Add in director Philip Noyce, director of Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), the titles heavily promoted on the poster, and also, more importantly from this picture’s perspective, Dead Calm (1989). The poster says nothing about screenwriter Richard Wenk but since he gave us The Equalizer trilogy – three of my favorite pictures – then suddenly this little movie, shoved out into streamer with none of the publicity accorded lesser movies, has got my attention.
I started out not liking this at all but gradually warmed to it and at the end considered it a pretty good addition to the sub-genre of new-gangster-takes-over-old-gangster’s-territory-but-with-a-twist. So Charlie (Pierce Brosnan) is driving hitman Donut (Brennan Keel Cook) to knock off low-end crim Kramer. Donut’s M.O. is the knife, but this being the kind of picture where characters swerve from the norm, he decides instead he’ll stick some explosive device in a box of donuts. That works, for sure, but it has the unfortunate by-product of blowing the guy’s head clean off – clean off as in no longer attached to the shoulders and, even if you could scrape up the bits and pieces, unrecognizable.
Therein lies the problem. To pick up his dough, Charlie needs to show an identifiable corpse. Donut is soon out of the picture, the dumb sonofa, pistol in hand while driving over bumpy road, shoots himself in the head, brings down a telegraph pole and sets the car on fire. Still Charlie isn’t known as fast for nothing (in fact, the title had no relevance whatsoever, so if you’re expecting a car chase buckle up and get frustrated) and he decides the dead man’s wife should somehow be able to identify him.
Sure enough, Marcie (Morena Baccarin), now an ex-wife but still harboring sentimental thoughts about her deadbeat now dead husband, explains he has a tattoo on his ass that she is willing to verify as belonging to the ass of said deceased. That should be that, another problem solved by our problem-solver or concierge, if you prefer.
Except, suddenly, all hell breaks loose. It’s gang war time. Charlie’s ageing boss Stan (James Caan) is the object of the hit and, unfortunately, for the hitters, Charlie treats this old man very much like a father (hence the “cowboy draw” soliloquy) and takes agin anyone who could have been responsible for the hit, which is pretty much anyone who has crossed the screen in the early part of the picture.
These dudes will have names, for sure, but heck, they hardly appear before Charlie starts to knock ‘em off so don’t expect me to remember them all. In any case, the movie, I warned you to expect a narrative swerve, moves in a different direction. One route is that subtle kind of May-December romance Wenk gave us in The Equalizer 3 (2023), Charlie, while trying his hand with Marcie, aware that he’s got very little chance of success, given the age gap (acknowledged at least rather than expecting younger women to jump into bed with any old guy just because they’re an ageing movie star and that’s what the audience expects), even though he’s a cultured hitman, pretty ace in the kitchen and old-style in attitude to women. Whether it’s her particular set of skills – see what she can do with a bird beak – or her lost soul that’s the attraction.
But that element is left kind of floating in the background as the story shifts up a gear as we discover why the hit was out on Kramer in the first place and why everybody else was getting rubbed out. It wouldn’t be this kind of picture without a couple of twists at the end.
Charlie is a laid-back hardman with a nice line in quips, self-possessed and self-effacing, but a regular guy when it comes to the regular things in life. His relationship to Stan is very touching and the romantic element is underdone.
So if you’re going to buckle up for his one, ignore the opening sequence, set the Tarantino vibe aside and wait until it gets into the meat-and-potatoes of relationships and of course, for the thrill-seekers out there, Charlie taking revenge.
Shows there’s more to Brosnan than a raised eyebrow, a last hurrah for James Caan (no introduction needed), and Brazilian actress Morena Baccarin (Deadpool, 2016) reveals unusual reserve in what could easily have been, in other hands, a more showy part.
Worth a look and free on Amazon Prime.
The Magnificent 60s 