3 Days to Kill (5/20/2014)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.

Starring Kevin Costner, Hailee Steinfeld and Amber Heard

Directed by McG

I was hoping for the next great sleeper film, unfortunately it just put me to sleep.

In this heart pounding action-thriller, Kevin Costner is a dangerous international spy, who is determined to give up his high stakes life to finally build a closer relationship with his estranged wife and daughter, whom he’s previously kept at arm’s length to keep out of danger. But first, he must complete one last mission- even if it means juggling the two toughest assignments yet: hunting down the world’s most ruthless terrorist and looking after his teenage daughter for the first time in ten years, while his wife is out of town.

I love when I get to walk into a movie having no idea what the film is about. Most of the time I feel I have seen the entire film through the extended trailers and overplayed internet ads. But when it came time to see 3 Days to Kill, the only thing I knew about it was it starred Kevin Costner, and he looked really cool on the movie poster. Unfortunately, I wish I had known a little bit more.

Do you remember the 1994 film called The Professional? Well that was writer-director Luc Besson’s breakthrough hit. That same year Quentin Tarantino introduced us to the two very cool, very like-able and very dangerous assassins of Vincent and Jules (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson), and since then the assassin has become a “hero” in American movies. You have John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Tom Cruise in Collateral just to name a few.

Now throw in the hero trying to balance job (killing people) and family (and estranged wife and daughter), who he’s trying to connect with before he dies of lung cancer and you have Besson’s latest screenplay, 3 Days to Kill.

Seriously, can’t we just enjoy people shooting other people?

McG tries to strike the balance between action and humor, but it just doesn’t work here. It’s more Charlie’s Angels (2000) and less Terminator Salvation (2009). The best 3 Days to a Kill manages is the running gag of having tense action scenes interrupted by the goofy ringtone his daughter has programmed into his cell phone. The low point comes when Ethan gets a spaghetti sauce recipe from an Italian man he has duct taped to a toilet and a gun pointed to his head. I didn’t know if I should laugh or run out of the theater crying.

I just didn’t know if I was supposed to take Kevin Costner seriously as a trained killer or see him more as a comedic character. There were a couple decent scenes and the premise seemed better than it appeared, but it just did not deliver, and for that reason I say “Skip It.”

SHOULD KIDS SEE IT?
There is a topless dancers’ scene that is completely unnecessary for the story.

There is a lot of violence. This is of course the same team (writer and director) who made the Taken films.

There’s also lots of car chases and explosions. The main character suffers attacks and hallucinations (the images ripple back and forth), accompanied by nose-bleeds. And a woman is decapitated in an elevator shaft.

There are 3 uses of the F-word (one is in subtitles). Other than that, several uses of the S-word, 1 of SOB, a few others.

CONVERSATION STARTER:

1. What is motivating Ethan to reconnect with his family?


2. Why has he been absent for so long?


3. Read James 4:13-15
   
   You should know better than to say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to the city. We will do business there for a year and make a lot of money!” What do you know about tomorrow? How can you be so sure about your life? It is nothing more than mist that appears for only a little while before it disappears. You should say, “If the Lord lets us live, we will do these things.”
   
   What could have Ethan learned from this verse?


4. What can we learn from it?


5. How can we do a better job of living for today?