Killer Elite (2011) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Thriller

Jason Statham (The Italian Job), Academy Award® nominee Clive Owen (Inside Man) and Academy Award® winner Robert De Niro (Raging Bull) star in Killer Elite, "one of the best action thrillers of the year!" (Richard Roeper) When two of the world's most elite operatives , Danny, a retired contract killer (Statham), and Hunter, his longtime mentor (De Niro) go up against the cunning leader of a secret military society (Owen), their hunt takes them around the globe from Australia to Paris, London, and the Middle East. As the stakes rise along with the body count, Danny and Hunter are soon plunged into an action-packed game of cat-and-mouse where no one is what they seem. Based on a shocking true story, it's an explosive, no-mercy thrill ride where the predator ultimately becomes the prey.

User Comment: mewperry from United States, 26 September 2011 • I'm baffled by some of the reviews I've seen of this film. I saw it this weekend and think it's really strong. Clive Owen and Jason Statham are both excellent as... elite killers. The action is great, the story is intricate and watching the plot unfold is just fun. You've got a group of mercenaries on a dubious mission, a group of ex-SAS stumbles on to them and then both sides are trying to figure out who the other guys are and what they're up to. Maybe it throws some people that there are no clear cut good guys and bad guys here. Both sides are essentially bad guys acting out of a questionable sense of what is right. But that's what made it interesting to me.

The film is at it's best when Owen and Statham are on screen together either coming after each other, fighting or staring each other down. Add a gun wielding, ass kicking De Niro into the mix and I'm happy sitting in a dark theater and munching popcorn.

Summary: The title says it all.

User Comment: Brett Chandler (Thunderbuck) from Whitehorse, Yukon, 28 September 2011 • I don't recall seeing a movie like this in a good, long time. It's a macho-action-thriller that didn't have an A-list budget, but probably didn't really need it, either. You used to see more of this back in the 70s and 80s; these days this kind of movie usually has a much bigger budget, with the requisite special effects and massive action sequences such a budget buys. Here, though, it's a little different.

Good action, intriguing setup (definitely no good-guy/bad-guy here; nobody is completely innocent by any stretch), and pretty good characters. And a story that's somewhat better than you usually find in this particular kind of film.

Don't know that Jason Statham's a great actor, exactly, but he's definitely a presence and he's got others to do the acting around him, and he performs in a several action scenes that come right up to the edge without getting silly. And I liked the basic plausibility in most of the scenes.

I'm a guy, and Killer Elite is a pretty decent "guy" movie. You could do worse.

Summary: For what it is, actually pretty good.

[CSW] -2.4- As usual stories based on supposedly real-life always leave the water murky. This movie, based on a book, stayed murky the whole time. I would much prefer good storytelling to a murky story that is supposedly based on the truth. The plot twists were never fully explained because you were never given an accurate back story. While this might appeal to some people interested in only the history of what happened but not why it happened, I personally found it very distracting. The action while exciting on its own, was a bit meaningless without a thorough understanding of the back story and a more concise plot. So if you're interested in seeing a story with great action and great actors but a pretty meaningless plot that is never adequately resolved, this is just the movie for you.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 9.5/10.

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