Movie Review: 3 Days to Kill (2014)
Written by Anthony Sargon
Luc Besson is one of the most prolific writer-producer-directors in the business. I haven’t enjoyed a lot of his more recent films, so I wasn’t particularly excited to see “3 Days to Kill.” I’m sad to say that my low expectations were pretty much met. Directed by McG, the flick is just another disposable, run-of-the-mill action flick that fails to take advantage of a likable Kevin Costner and impressive Hailee Steinfeld.
Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) is a retiring secret agent who’s also just found out he has a few months to live. He decides to spend what time he’s got left with his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and their daughter Zoee (Hailee Steinfeld). When Ethan is approached by the dark and mysterious Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) and asked to take out some targets for an experimental drug that could extend his life, his family reunion is quickly interrupted.
There’s honestly very little I enjoyed about the film. The only scenes that worked for me were the ones featuring Ethan trying to make up for lost time with his daughter. Some of them were surprisingly emotional, and it’s thanks to Kevin Costner and Hailee Steinfeld’s impressive work. Costner is getting better with age, and he brings a certain level of charm to his character, but everything is juts so poorly written that you have very little reason to care. There are a lot of awkward moments and jokes that fall flat, and for a movie that’s almost two hours long, that’s just no good.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a McG directed flick, although he can usually deliver some decent action sequences. That’s not the case here, and I actually found the car chase scenes to be extremely choppy and badly cut together. Besides that, nothing really stands out. It made me wish this wasn’t actually an action film, but a story about a father trying to reconnect with his daughter. As I mentioned before, Costner and Steinfeld are game, but Amber Heard gives an extremely cheesy and awful turn as Vivi. Everything about the character is just badly thought-out, from her clothes (sexy but stupid) to where she hangs out. Connie Nielsen is also pretty terrible as Costner’s wife, but the character is pretty useless anyway.
The Verdict:
While the movie does have a couple of effective emotional moments, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before that hasn’t been done better. ”3 Days to Kill” is just too generic and disposable to be worth anyone’s time.
Numerical Score: 4/10
Read the Original post on A Geek's Blog
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/120329 |