Sunday, February 12, 2012

Day 32 -- Killers



Released: June 4th, 2010


Starring: Katherine Heigl, Aston Kutcher, Tom Selleck

Writer/Director: Bob DeRosa and Ted Griffin/Robert Luketic

Description: A vacationing woman meets her ideal man, leading to a swift marriage. Back at home, however, their idyllic life is upset when they discover their neighbors could be assassins who have been contracted to kill the couple.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***
The main premise of an action, romantic-comedy is that there must be chemistry between the leads. Without that chemistry, everything just falls flat. Jokes aren't funny, the drama isn't all that dramatic, and the films story really isn't all that interesting. It one of the few genres where everything depends on something so unpredictable.

Unfortunately, for "Killers" the producers chose Aston Kutcher and Katerine Heigl. For two actors, who from the outside look like they should play well off each other, there is zero chemistry on the screen. There was not one point in the movie where I even believed their relationship, especially when she started freaking out about his hidden past. The fact that the writer had to throw in a pregnancy storyline, showed how desperate they were to make the audience care about something.

To be honest, I don't how Heigl keeps getting rom-com roles. There's not one stand out performance in the genre where a producer can say, 'well, she did well in [insert movie] that one time.' Even Julia Roberts, who made a solid living of the genre, has "My Best Friends Wedding" on her resume. The next time Heigl makes a good movie, it will be her first. Her closest is "Knocked Up", and she had absolutely nothing to do with that film's success.

Kutcher, on the other hand, usually excels in this kind of role. But for some reason, he falls short. He handles the action parts, but it's obvious that it's not his strong suit. He was strong with his delivery on the comedy, but he really had nothing to work with through out the film. Even Selleck was flat.

"Killers" tried so hard to be "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", but forgot that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are two of the best actors working today. It's not easy to insert any two good looking actors into a movie and expect the movie to do well. Sure, it may make money because of name recognition, but it's been a long time since box office revenues automatically equals great movie. "Killers" was basically a money-grab, and anyone that says otherwise, doesn't know how the industry works.

Rating: 4/10 -- Really poorly executed movie. The concept was cool, but everything else was crap. Kutcher must have needed to get out of the house because this is below even his mediocre standards. 

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