You have to ask: Why didn’t this movie open in November? Nobody is saying. Box office results also indicate people are waiting for November; at which time this movie should be available for home viewing from all kinds of sources. The good news is that you don’t need to wait with everybody else. You can see it now.
Pierce Brosnan returns to the screen as an aging, but spry, spy; adept at all the spy things he has to be good at to keep his job. He has retired and trained his replacement, played by Aussie actor Luke Bracey. Brosnan is lured out of retirement for an under-the-radar assignment. The only problem is that the assignment makes him a target of his protégée. This results in gunfights, explosions, car and truck crashes, beatings, knife and razor blade wounds and many other blunt objects bashing into faces and vital organs. The misunderstandings are all decisively settled.
Between the bouts of violence, Brosnan and Bracey try to figure out what is going on and why. The bad guys appear to be a Vladimir Putin wannabe and horde of CIA bosses who can’t be trusted. Neither can the police, the local detectives, bar bouncers and sky-caps at the bus depot and or airport. It seems everybody is out to get everybody else for reasons that are not entirely clear.
However, from your seat in the audience, you can just let them sort it out on screen while you enjoy the antics. Unfortunately, the antics go on well beyond the point where the audience and the characters on screen should have it all figured out. Cutting 20 or so minutes from the film’s running time would significantly improve it – as if that’s going to happen.
So while Brosnan, 61, is past his James Bond days, he still puts on a good show. In another 15 years he’ll qualify to join “The Expendables.”
Rated 2.9 out of 4.0 to wait until November.
