Better than I expected, worse than what it could have been...

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2010)

The title of my review says it all. Bruce Willis starts in another mediocre movie. This time seems to be the typical corporate espionage type of movie, of course mixed up with comedy, hilarious action scenes, undeveloped but ridiculous characters and the last but not the least... a crappy story for a fun-to-watch movie. This movie is entertaining but at the same time it could have been much more than that. This movie could have been a little bit smarter, wiser and why not funnier. The story itself is pretty much the same. CIA agents trapped in some "conspiracy" thing, they try to take the matter in their own hands and solve the problem, they succeed and the guy gets the girl. Nothing new. What I was impressed though was the delivery of those key moments in a movie which were timed very good to keep the audience interested in the movie.
As for the casting, Bruce Willis did what he always does being the character-actor he is, but Bruce was not the guy who stole the show. John Malkovich takes that easily. Each scene he's in was hilarious and the way he played (again a typical JM character) that agent was fun to watch. The dialogue was pretty good, there were some very good jokes but every now and then you got the cheesy one that made you go from "ha-ha-ha" to "hm-hm-hm". The rest of the cast was OK, nothing being good nor bad even though I just couldn't find Mary-Louise Parker attractive and fit for her role but maybe that's just me. As for the action-scenes, there were some (many?) of them which were screaming for attention and hilarity but at the end I guess you could get over it since this movie is not meant to be taken seriously. I could name this movie as being "The Losers Meets Burn After Reading" because, in fact, this movie has the stupid action scenes from The Losers, the crappy story from the Losers and it also has the delivery from Burn After Reading and the thin humor.
As far the technical part, the editing was the stand-out, the music was so and so, started good turned bad getting better turned worse and so on, the cinematography was pretty much average and one thing irritated me so bad: those postcard crossovers between the cities. I mean, it looked so lame from my point of view and the ending was just "mehhh"... but then again that's maybe just me.
The final take on this movie is that it's a entertaining movie where you don't need to pay attention to the story too much. This is easily a matinée or a rental (as the guys from spill would say) I recommend it for anyone who is lazy and wants just to watch something fun.