A Few Reviews

I decided to see a movie, but skipped the two I really wanted to see, Moneyball and 50/50, because I thought Rosalie would like to see them. So I opted for one I was sure she wouldn’t want to see, a rough and tumble Killer Elite with Robert De Niro, Jason Stratham, and Clive Owen. Lots of banging around and car chases, and a most confusing plot involving Stratham and De Niro finding and killing three ex-British operatives who had gunned down three sons of the shah of Oman. The shah, who had kidnapped De Niro as a way to get Stratham to do his bidding, wanted his revenge, and it required that the three who had killed his sons also be killed, their deaths to look accidental (why?), their confessions recorded and sent to the shah (why?). Clive Owen was sort of a guardian of the secret committee of ex-operatives and takes it on himself to stop whoever is killing the three. Are you confused? I certainly was. The entire audience probably was. What I most object to in this kind of film is the physical violence the characters can withstand, the fights with judo kicks and fist smashes to the face and body and savage blows with steel bars or chair legs or anything else that comes to hand, the falls from prodigious heights.. And the combatants never seem to show any physical damage. Dumb. That’s my assessment of the whole thing—dumb.