You know you’re in for a real treat when the preview for a film makes the audience laugh. Especially when said preview is for an action film that highlights absolutely nothing comical. I’m not sure if it is Cage’s ridiculous hair or bad outfits that had that audience in fits of laughter but I was sure that nothing good could come of it. Okay, I take that back… maybe one good thing could.
 
Enter everyday, low-key hitman, Joe. The movie opens up with Joe on assignment providing all the backstory to relate his hitman thesis. 
 
Joe moves on to Bangkok to continue with his profession, accepting contracts to eliminate four targets. Acquiring a young man by the name of Kong to act as liaison with his employers, Joe becomes attached to the young man and begins teaching him the skills of a hitman. Breaking his rules as a hitman, Joe also becomes attached to a beautiful mute pharmacist.
 
After forming these personal attachments, he finds himself unable to execute the last person on his list, a popular politician who is known for his compassion and efforts to fight criminal corruption. This puts him in a head-on collision with his underworld employer where the body count skyrockets.
 
Surprisingly enough, this film wasn’t as funny and entertaining as the previews made it out to be. In fact, the dark, slow and deliberate pace of the film is almost antithetical to the advertising behind it. There is little excitement in the story and not much in the way of action until toward the end of the movie. Sure, Cage was playing a depressed, withdrawn character who lamely wants to reach out for personal attachments. Chalk it up to a hitman middle-age crisis. Sure it could have worked but without being able to identify with the characters’ true feelings; with one exception being the mute girl, Rain, it’s impossible to care what happens in the story.
 
Oddly enough, the highlight of the film was the mute character. It was the way she expressed herself so fully without even needing to verbally communicate that won me over. She expresses more emotion and dialog using simple gestures with her face and eyes than all the other characters in the film put together without such limitations. Her joy is adamant as is her incredible disappointment when she discovers the truth behind her new love.
 
Mute girl aside, I hated this film. Not because it was flat. Not because it tries being very stylized while failing miserably. I hate this film because it is… drum roll please… a freakin’ remake! Yeah, this story was told back in 1999 under the same title only it was the hitman that was a mute. Hollywood must have truly run out of ideas. They’ve been nabbing ideas from the Asian horror film genre for years now. Guess it’s time to move on to their action films and steal those ideas, too!

VERDICT | NOT!!!