
Year: 2014
Rated PG-13
Rating: * * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Connie Nielsen, Hailee Steinfeld
There's a scene in 3 Days to Kill, where hitman Ethan Runner's (Kevin Costner) car rams into the villain's car sending said villain and his three cohorts over a bridge (to what I thought was certain death). But wait, everyone gets out of the wreckage pretty much unharmed. If you saw this flick in theaters, you probably shook your head in disbelief and said well, "it's only a movie". If you haven't seen "Days" yet, then you gotta believe me when I tell you that there is no way these four guys could survive this crash, no freaking way! There is also a scene where Costner, who's character has five months left before he dies, gets injected with some sort of serum (by way of a customized syringe) to prolong his life span and maybe drive his cancer away. When he experiences side effects like dizziness, he's told to drink multiple shots of vodka as a subsiding anecdote, uh huh.
Anyway, this is just a preview of things to come with another round of messy, incoherent, glossy schlock courtesy of director Joseph McGinty Nichol (otherwise known as McG). I liked his earlier stuff as a guilty pleasure. His re-imagining of a TV show with Charlie Angels was a film I dug and many other critics loathed. It reminded me of a female Matrix and of course, it had Bill Murray (he played their boss, John Bosley). I gotta admit, McG is not too shabby with staging action sequences. And there are times when he's sort of a whiz with the camera. But when it comes to formulating a movie with structure and coherency, he hasn't quite mastered that yet. His films are usually all over the place and 3 Days to Kill is no exception. It's a little comedic, laughably dramatic, exceedingly violent (even for PG-13), and overloaded with too many little subplots. There are actors/actresses who are miscast, characters who fade in and out of the proceedings multiple times (and who are contradictory in their actions), situations that are not plausible, and the presence of a purple bike as a weak metaphor (please don't ask). Now in defense of "Days," there are a couple of nifty fight scenes (especially one that takes place in a supermarket bakery) and a cool mini car chase. But what's on screen is something that doesn't know what it wants to be. Does that mean that I'm leaning toward a mixed review? Oh you betcha.
Produced by the notable Luc Besson (along with four other people as well) and filmed in Paris and Serbia, 3 Days to Kill examines the final job of CIA agent Ethan Runner (Costner). He wants to retire, knows that he has to get his affairs in order because of a terminal illness, and yearns to spend the remaining time with his daughter (Zoey played by Hailee Steinfeld) and I guess his wife who he's estranged from (Connie Nielsen). When he arrives in Paris to see them, he is then coaxed back into a life of killing by a fellow agent named Vivi Delay (Amber "I just got engage to Johnny Depp" Heard). She's persuades Runner by offering him a ton of money and an unknown substance (mentioned earlier) guaranteed to keep him alive longer. Costner's Ethan agrees to this and now has to split his time between offing the intended targets and being a doting husband/father. There are some other elements to the story but to explain more would just be a couple of paragraphs of hot air.

Written by Jesse Burleson
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