thomas4cinema

Nobody will ever manage to make me believe that Jason Statham is an action superstar. Just try to imagine what “Killer Elite” would have been had Stallone or Schwarzenegger played in it: a crappy piece of breathtaking action, with an entertainingly over-the-top wooden performance in the center. Now, with Stathem it is … a crappy piece of forgettable arbitrary action. Full stop. It seems that Statham’s agent decided that any too specific or characteristic performance of his client would be detrimental to future cash flow, so whatever he puts him in is so forgettable that the whole of the “star”’s oevre melts into generic memory porridge of flying cars and exploding gunshot wounds. In Killer Elite that happens with the decorative contribution of Clive Owen and Robert de Niro, the latter looking utterly ridiculous running around with an gun in his hand – he should not do that anymore, honestly! What comes as a plot “based on true facts” circles around Statham  needing to kill somebody to get somebody else (de Niro) saved, and that is all you need to know. Then there are some secret service or CIA or what not institutions chipping in, and after about one hour I was so bored out of my mind that I stopped watching.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/killer_elite_2011/