And by performances I mean a Kevin Costner who seems totally perplexed by
the strange comedy-espionage world he's stumbled into, and Amber Heard vamping
it up in a variety of skin tight outfits (and odd locales) that are worth the
price of admission alone. It's not fair to say that Besson tosses Costner into
the Taken blender because 3 Days to Kill is only partly an action
movie; the good majority of it resembles a sitcom where the clueless dad tries
to reconnect with his rebellious teen. It makes for a strange brew, and one
that's too ridiculous to be boring.
Costner, with his unkempt beard and collection of scarfs plays Ethan, a CIA
operative who has grown tired of the job. After a run-in with the
ludicrously-named, but also sort of awesome villain known as The Albino goes
belly-up when Ethan passes out, he's diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. With
only months left to live, he decides to hang up his gun and reconnect with his
ex-wife (Connie Nielsen) and estranged daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld), who
are now living in Paris. The wife never liked his job, and Zoey has no clue
about it, but just as Ethan is starting to get comfortable he's roped back into
business by an oversexed honeypot named Vivi (Heard). He refuses, even somehow
shaking her flirtatious charms..."You're not my type", he says.
"I'm everybody's type", she comes back.
She's not wrong, but it takes the offer of an experimental cure to get Ethan
back for one last murder mission, taking out an arms dealer named The Wolf. The
cure causes Ethan to black out at inconvenient moments, like every time he's
about to nab the bad guy. But what makes him even more delirious is the
presence of an African family of squatters who have taken over his home
randomly. The youngest son is always trying to give him high-fives, which Ethan
is WAY too cool for. In an effort to make good with Zoey he buys a purple bike
nobody wants to ride, and then there's the issue of her dating and having hair
troubles and the big dance is coming up and what is a trained killer to do!?!?
Why not torture some sage parenting advice out of the guys he's been hired to
beat up? An unfortunate Italian accountant is forced to give up his recipe for
marinara or face further brutality; while another insider (Marc Androni) keeps
getting phone calls from Ethan on how to raise a daughter. Speaking of phones,
Zoey sets Icona Pop's "I Don't Care" as Ethan's ringtone and it goes
off at the worst times imaginable. Stealth apparently isn't in his job
description.
It's over-the-top and nonsensical but Besson and co-writer Adi Hasak know
exactly what they're doing. Some of the jokes about "cowboy"
Americans and France's silly governmental system are lifted from Besson's old
playbook (they can be heard in The Family
most recently), and McG directs with his usual emphasis on action rather than
emotion. Costner fits comfortably as a bad ass despite his weathered, beaten
body, which only makes his bewilderment during the sentimental moments all the
more believable. The film does veer a little too heavily into schmaltz,
especially when Ethan starts offering up dance lessons and teaching Zoey how to
ride a bike. The mix of humor and violence isn't always on-point, and the tone
is more than a little disorienting. Hardly one of Besson's best but far from
his worst (ever seen Wasabi?
Or From
Paris with Love?), 3 Days to Kill is entertaining enough,
ironically, for those with some time to kill.
