Movie Review: Killer Elite (2011)

The Jason Statham combat collection is rife with absurdly amusing fights, and certainly his chair-tied, backflip-splash smackdown of a mustacheod Clive Owen in Killer Elite ranks right up there with the best of them. Unfortunately, however, this movie fails to sustain the over-the-top stupidity, instead boring us with mundanely executed action-assassin cliches until the inevitable Statham/Owen main event delivers the goods, albeit too little, too late. The plot revolves around the kidnapping of Statham's mentor, played by Robert De Niro, and subsequently his forced involvement in assassinating three ex-SAS members to free De Niro from captivity. Clive Owen becomes involved at the behest of a secret military society and seeks to stop Statham from completing his mission. Precisely what drives Owen is never clarified, and really, what drives any of these characters besides Statham (he has a soft spot for innocent children and pretty women) is never clarified. But a muddled story never stopped an action movie before, and Killer Elite is certainly just another action movie. Besides the aforementioned climatic chair acrobatics, nothing here really stands out, besides an overabundance of headbuts and low blows. Your best bet is to stay home, watch the trailer for the chair scene, and then throw in Transporter 2 (2005) for a better, and more appropriately absurd, action romp.