After the unexpected, but well deserved success of "Taken", Luc Besson as is his habit decides to utilise the concept by changes a few pieces, repackaging it and selling it to the audience. Another middle-aged (or even elderly) anti-hero is introduced in the guise of Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner), an experienced top-of-the-line CIA contract killer, who finds out that a terminal cancer leaves him with but 3 months of life. Besson mixes family and carnage once again, as the now retired assassin attempts to reconcile with his wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and estranged daughter Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld) before he passes on. Despite vows to the contrary, Ethan nonetheless decides to reembark into his career path, when voluptuously irritating operative Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) coalesces him into one final hit in return for access to a new experimental cancer drug (viola! magic!). As Ethan stumbles along to fix the ruptured family relationship and with his body destitute through illness he essentially crawls his way to the task at hand.
Mixing up some odd humour, including fraternisation on matters of family with kidnapped objects of torture, Ethan is yet another well-worked distinguishable character within the Besson pantheon. Whereas McG of "Terminator: Salvation" infamy directs, the entire story reeks of scriptwriter Besson's distinct fingerprints - starting from incompetent French police forces and ending at the familial mix of tongue-in-cheek violence. Much in the mold of the aforementioned "Taken", the morality of things takes an intriguing skewed path, however much less daring than that of the Macchiavelian approach of Bryan Mills. Murder, death remain a distant afterthought, never truly delved upon, instead functioning at gimmicks to make compelling or just comedic story structures.
Kevin Costner works his best in the role, but lacks the forceful stature of Liam Neeson, thus never seeming as domineering as a super agent. That said Ethan Renner is meant to be more flawed, less self-assured, however just as efficient a killer. More worryingly the moral overtones are mostly jarring, set in to forward the story, but somewhat troubling in how cynically they are utilised, while being internally lax. Overall however "3 Days to Kill" manage to keep up the action and comedy to a satisfying level, letting the troublesome issues skid by while taking everything at face value.
Somewhere within this movie is the absolutely atrocious character of Viva Delay, sent in by the scriptwriter/director solely to get animalistic response from the male audience, while offering nothing of substance or relevance. The less said the better.
Mixing up some odd humour, including fraternisation on matters of family with kidnapped objects of torture, Ethan is yet another well-worked distinguishable character within the Besson pantheon. Whereas McG of "Terminator: Salvation" infamy directs, the entire story reeks of scriptwriter Besson's distinct fingerprints - starting from incompetent French police forces and ending at the familial mix of tongue-in-cheek violence. Much in the mold of the aforementioned "Taken", the morality of things takes an intriguing skewed path, however much less daring than that of the Macchiavelian approach of Bryan Mills. Murder, death remain a distant afterthought, never truly delved upon, instead functioning at gimmicks to make compelling or just comedic story structures.
Kevin Costner works his best in the role, but lacks the forceful stature of Liam Neeson, thus never seeming as domineering as a super agent. That said Ethan Renner is meant to be more flawed, less self-assured, however just as efficient a killer. More worryingly the moral overtones are mostly jarring, set in to forward the story, but somewhat troubling in how cynically they are utilised, while being internally lax. Overall however "3 Days to Kill" manage to keep up the action and comedy to a satisfying level, letting the troublesome issues skid by while taking everything at face value.
Somewhere within this movie is the absolutely atrocious character of Viva Delay, sent in by the scriptwriter/director solely to get animalistic response from the male audience, while offering nothing of substance or relevance. The less said the better.