½*/****
directed by Paco Cabezas
by Bill Chambers Max Landis follows up his American Ultra script with another action comedy about slick killing machines but abandons the Manchurian Candidate backstory in a grotesquely cynical fashion: When Sam Rockwell throws knives at new girlfriend Anna Kendrick to prove she can catch them, his conviction is based on nothing more substantial than her being the star of this particular show. Over and over, Mr. Right acknowledges that it's a cartoon, and not in an enjoyably meta, Duck Amuck sort of way–more in a "you don't care, so why should we?" sort of way. If American Ultra was The Bourne Identity meets take-your-pick-of-stoner-comedies, incidentally, then this is Grosse Pointe Blank with the quirk dialled up to toxic, nay, radioactive levels. Kendrick's on-the-rebound Martha, introduced in a childhood flashback making T-Rex gestures that prove her sole defining trait, meets-cute Rockwell's Francis over a super-slo-mo spill in the condom aisle. (Should the title not stick, may I suggest We Rented a Phantom Camera as one alternative?) Francis is a quasi-reformed hitman in a Patch Adams clown nose who's trying to set the cosmos straight by offing his former clients; Tim Roth, James Ransone, Anson Mount, the RZA, and others are the Dan Aykroyds hot on his trail and from whose clutches he will inevitably have to rescue Martha. Rockwell looks young for 47, but his nearly thirty-year career in film creates–for me, at least–an insurmountable age gap when casting him as the star of Pitch Perfect's love interest. They have decent chemistry, mostly thanks to Kendrick's enveloping charisma, yet it feels like just another example of Mr. Right presuming no real discernment on the part of the viewer. Every scene is glibly cute and throbbing with misanthropy, with Roth's "oof, that had to hurt!"-style colour commentary as Francis effortlessly wipes out an entire tactical team an early low point. If this doesn't disabuse any notion that Landis is the next Tarantino, hack lines like "I'm here all week, try the veal" ought to do the trick. Programme: Gala Presentations
