Wild Target is a
film I wasn’t sure I’d ever watch. It
came up on Netflix instant several times as a suggestion, but I always wrote it
off because something about the art for it through me off and made me think it
wasn’t what it ended up being. I thought
it was going to be some slightly-serious girl in trouble piece, but it turned
out to be a not-even-remotely-serious girl in trouble piece, and is a whole lot
of fun to watch.
Wild Target is the
story of a thief who is more like a kleptomaniac named Rose (Emily Blunt). In selling a piece of artwork she had stolen,
she unfortunately rips off the wrong British gangster (Rupert Everett). He is understandably pissed off, so hires the
best assassin in the business Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) to kill her. Victor is somewhat particular about things,
which is evident from his meticulous plastic-wrapped home. In his pursuit of Rose, he changes his mind
about killing her, which sets into motion a comedy of errors where he is trying
to prevent Rose from being killed by the gangster’s henchmen with the help of
Tony, played by Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame. Thankfully, aside from the initial “He’s from
Harry Potter!” you don’t think of him that way for the rest of the movie.
The great thing about this movie is all the interactions
between the conflicting personalities.
As said before, Victor is a very prim and proper gentleman, and does not
handle Rose’s relaxed attitude or Tony’s naïveté well. As expected he starts to open up to them
eventually, but mostly against his will.
Rose does not take well to having her life in danger, insomuch as she
isn’t really affected by it at all, which helps keep it in danger consistently
throughout the movie. And Tony, who
greatly enjoys a bath with some marijuana to smoke, has difficulty coming to
terms with the fact that he might have the killer instinct inside him. He does want to apprentice with Victor, but
only because he thinks he’s a private investigator at first.
There are also a few supporting characters that add a lot of
fun to the movie. Victor’s mother--who
he of course refers to as “Mother” as she’s telling him what to do--is played
by Eileen Atkins. Her lines aren’t
always the funniest, but watching a little old lady wield weaponry and try and
kill people is always good for a laugh.
And the other great addition is Martin Freeman as Victor’s rival Hector
Dixon, who is much more about the killing than the job, and also has really
weird teeth.
This movie is great fun, and definitely worth a look if you
have Netflix instant, and if you don’t you can probably find it on DVD
somewhere if you look. It’s unfortunate
this didn’t get a US release (or I missed it), because it is much better than a
lot of our most recent comedies. So if
you like and/or understand British comedy, definitely give this one a look.
John Hackert is a
columnist and thinks that surprisingly Emma Watson may have the worst post-Harry
Potter career out of the principle cast.
No comments:
Post a Comment