With its focus on the relationship between a cynical assassin and a temperamental teen girl, 3 Days to Kill feels much more like a Luc Besson movie than it does a McG flick. As a result, Ethan divides his time between Zoey’s boyfriend problems, torturing people for info that could lead to his target, and fighting off the hallucinogenic side effects of the serum - which may or may not be working. The women in his life are mad that he abandoned them for his job with the CIA, and while Ethan intends to spend his final months winning them over, a sexy agent named Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) appears and offers to give him an experimental drug that will buy him more time if he helps her hunt down the Wolf. After being told that the CIA no longer requires his services and, even worse, that he has at best five months to live, Ethan travels to Paris in order to reconnect with his long-suffering wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and estranged teenage daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld), whom he hasn’t seen since she was a little girl. Kevin Costner plays grizzled CIA agent Ethan Renner, who botches his latest assignment - taking out an international criminal known as “the Albino,” who’s an associate of an even bigger criminal mastermind called “the Wolf” - and learns he has brain cancer that has spread to his lungs. From his Oscar wins for “Dances With Wolves” to his sweetheart turn in “The Bodyguard” to his washed-up golf pro in “Tin Cup,” Costner understands his strengths and plays to all of them at times here.3 Days to Kill pairs the subtlety-free direction of McG with a script co-written by international popcorn-cinema superstar Luc Besson, and the result is an action comedy that delivers a couple of satisfying gunfights, lands a few funny moments, and fumbles the dramatic beats. The actor is game whether he’s being asked to fight off truculent teens or treacherous terrorists or patch up Zooey’s boy problems. The film is helped by Costner’s self-deprecating, aw-shucks charm. Then before you can decide whether to laugh or groan, the movie shifts into sentimental mode for some sweet or sad moment between Ethan and Zooey, including gooey flashbacks of her childhood complete with carnival rides, beaches and nothing but smiles. The absurd takes so many shapes and shows up around so many corners, it’s just too much. There are times the Wolf hunt gets intense with all the requisite spy game maneuvering and bang-bang-pow, the shattered glass and bloodied bodies falling with a stylized grace.īut McG keeps hamming up the farce, allowing it to grab all the attention like an obnoxious teenage thug. But the film goes wildly overboard on the problem front, packing every possible teen girl quandary into a few days, from learning to ride a bike to date-rape drugs, no kidding. There are moments between Ethan and Zooey that feel like the real deal, and Costner and Steinfeld have a good chemistry. PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of movies and TV How to balance a father-daughter reconciliation story with a spy thriller, with a life-and-death medical crisis, with a farce? This is where the film’s many fraying edges are exposed. The difficulty for McG is in the juggling act this requires. Good news at cocktail parties, bad news in subway stations. But luckily relief is just a few shots of Vodka away. Like who can a CIA killer turn to for advice in navigating those turbulent teen waters? A mole? A mob accountant? Where can he get wise counsel? The squatters crowding his Paris apartment?Įthan does have to deal with the occasional hallucination from the experimental meds Vivi’s giving him in trade for his help in taking out the Wolf. Rather than warring spouses, “3 Days” has dad and daughter dancing around all the explosive issues. Smith,” the 2005 assassin-love satire that created Brangelina. Instead the target territory is closer to the sniping and shooting that went on between “Mr. Good locations for McG to apply lots of his famous polish. But home is Paris, so there is an upside. We already know from the voicemail he’s left on daughter Zooey’s (Steinfeld) phone, there are serious daddy issues back home. BEST MOVIES OF 2013: Turan | Sharkey | Olsen
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