A great watch, once you've gotten over the flaws

Rating: 7/10 (24 April 2009)

This movie was destined from the start to become a cult classic. Interesting camera footage, thrilling action scenes, a dark story line, witnessing a lead character's progression from a normal everyday guy into something beyond your comprehension. Superhero movies of recent years have all been based on the same principle, the Matrix was one non-stereotypical-superhero movie that started in exactly the same way, with the clueless, naive and weak office employee sat at his desk thinking there must be more to life, and then suddenly something extraordinary happens to him, changing his life forever.
But more than any other, this film reeks 'fight club' to me (who's lead-character, or at least half of it, was Brad Pitt, funny how that works out eh?) The style of narration and flow of the plot is almost identical, as is the apathy and even the insomnia of the lead character, the angry and fed-up boss, the unnecessary violence and 'shock scenes', it's all there. If you blink for just a second you could actually imagine Ed Norton in the role. I say all this, not as a criticism, anything copied from a classic like Fight Club is bound to be good, but just that it doesn't do anything really different.
There are some flaws too, at the start, the guy finds out that his dad has died and that he has just inherited 3 million dollars from a guy he never knew, he is then co-erced into becoming an assassin to hunt down and kill the guy who murdered this father (that he never knew but was suddenly so full of revenge for). He puts up with countless beatings, knife attacks, verbal abuse etc. just because he didn't like being pushed around by his boss in the office any more? Hello? The guy's got 3 mil in the bank, he would never need to work again or be pushed around by anyone, why would he choose to be beat up and risk his life for people he doesn't know, and for a cause he has no reason to care anything about, over catching the next plane and going on holiday for the rest of his life.
Another thing, Angelina Jolie, yeah she looks great, but should she? This isn't a Tombraider sequel where everything is enhanced and perfect and you just accept it because you know it's based on a computer game- it's not going to be realistic, but if she was really that hot, she wouldn't go to work as an assassin, she'd be an actress, a supermodel, in porn or something like that. What's the point of becoming an actress and playing yourself? They should've roughed her character up a bit, but then it was probably a clause in her contract that she had to look super hot, else how else would she out-shine the rest of the cast? The final annoying thing was that the main character only had 6 weeks of training, there's nothing to suggest his lifestyle was anything close to healthy before that point given his apathy, and yes we find out that his heart rate can beat faster and that he can use that to his advantage by slowing things down, but that doesn't make him more healthy, far from it. But suddenly after 6 weeks he's shooting like the world's greatest sniper, on acid, he's able to hit bridges with his face while on top of a speeding train and still live, and he can kick like like Bruce Lee. All in 6 weeks! A little more credibility could've easily been added with that respect just by changing the time to a couple of years, something like that. The fact they specifically write into the narration "6 weeks ago I was a no-body" just cries out BS, why even say it? The 'fraternity' the story focuses on, was supposedly 1,000 years old, but it could've been a million years old for all the depth this lent to the story, and what's with the giant magical loom? If it doesn't have an explanation, should it really be in the film? Seems to me that it was added only to show that Sloan was a liar, which in turn cause the lead character to kill his father, and stops miss Jolie from putting a bullet in his head when she finds out at the end, a pretty crucial plot-turner right? So why was it so lame? There are plenty of more rational and believable ways to replicate this part of the story but the way it is, it all ends up a bit messy and trite. They go to visit the founding place of the order, but learn nothing, and talk about nothing, so also go there what for? The final thing that annoyed me was near the end when they try to kill the main character, but they can't because 'We've trained him too well', why did they train him so well? They said they needed him because he was the only one his father wouldn't kill, so why would they need to train him at all? Just give him a motive and a gun, that would be enough, you don't need to teach someone how to bend bullets if they could shoot their target at point blank range.
The action scenes were great anyway, imaginative, well planned and perfectly executed. The camera work, if not entirely original, was awesome to watch and had me rewinding in quite a few places.
Overall, look past its flaws and it's a great cult action film. Memorable and ground-breaking however, it is. . not.