Well made outfit with a rotting interior

Rating: 5/10 (28 January 2007)

So what's the first impression of this film. You see well made short scenes, with the oh so cool guys shooting with silenced guns. You might like the groovy music and the camera job and think "this has some style, let's admit that". You hear dialog spoken by famous actors. Although the talk is just these average "clever" one liners, you go with it. After all, at this point the movie might feel almost like a comedy as it rolls on and the spectator is happily oblivious to the true suckyness of it.
But then something happens. As usual, the plot is revealed fully only at the last moments. By then you have already guessed it so you are more interested in how they are going to bring it out so it doesn't seem totally implausible. They don't. Good guys kill the bad guys, the boy gets the girl, end of story. Now if you portray Bruce Willis and Josh Hartnett (who is really out of place here) as your world's best hit men who shoot everybody in the head, why do they even need to do all that plotting that could go wrong in any of the movie's wonderfully clever plot twists. In the end they just walk in to those towers and blow the sh*t out of everyone. Where do you need the one liners, just do it and end the movie. 5 min job.
Right right, now all you think "these movies are not meant to be taken seriously". Then why does the makers want us to swallow the serious feelings about the dead family, the gruesome violence or the mob bosses' tormented pasts. Every emotion feels faked (well lets face it: the dialog, characters and the action kinda feels that way too). The romance is as shallow as ever, even though that too is portrayed in the frustrating touchy feely way.
Come to think of it, the movie's basic plot line does have a striking resemblance to both "Fistfull of dollars" and "Once upon a time in the west". There're a few problems though: Josh Hartnett is no Clint Eastwood, Jason Smilovic & Paul McGuigan are no match for Sergio Leone and you're missing Ennio Morricone's music.