3 Days to Kill ** (2014, Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen) – Movie Review

Kevin Costner (aged 59) enjoys rare top star billing here these days as Ethan Renner, a cancer-afflicted dying CIA agent trying to reconnect with his snotty estranged teenaged daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) meets the exotic and way over-madeup CIA agent Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) who offers him an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment. He’s got to find and take down a couple of cardboard villains in The Albino and The Wolf.

With an original story by co-screenwriter and co-producer Luc Besson, 3 Days to Kill is a queasy experience, jam packed with an awkward treble whammy of violent action, cynical laughs and sickly sentimentality, always a bitter mixture to try to swallow. There’s an undertow of sexism, racism and machismo unpleasantly at the base of the screenplay, replacing any heart and soul it needs to make it work. It wants to take a profitable leaf out of Liam Nesson’s 2008 movie Taken with a bit of Bourne Identity stuff thrown in, but it just can’t make the mark.

Director McG understandably seems intimidated by the prospect of marshalling all these tricky elements to make a red-hot blockbuster. He’s clumsy with the personal bits and the comedy. And he even messes up the action scenes in the process. Huge, impressive technical challenges though they must have been to film, they just seem cold, heartless, mechanical and uninvolving on screen.

Steinfeld, Heard and Connie Nielsen as Ethan’s estranged wife Christine Renner are all a bit of a pain, but then they have rotten roles to play. Tómas Lemarquis and Richard Sammel look suitably scary and do their best with their stock villain characters, The Albino and The Wolf, which isn’t much. Costner, armed and completely dangerous, however seizes his chance, relishes it, and he’s really good.

3 Days to Kill is far too long at two hours, and slack and saggy in the middle, but it passes the time OK as solid popcorn action fun.

McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol) is the director of Charlie’s Angels, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Terminator Salvation.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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