I picked this up as it was supposedly the director's debut, and you never want to be too harsh as its not easy breaking into a difficult and overdone genre as the new guy on the block. First thought? Jason Bourne: the chick flick, on a budget. In truth, this is what happens when you have good direction, but dreadful writing. The story is absurd and the plot is so full of holes that it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny (e.g. how does the 2nd asset find the remote rural house at exactly 2mins before the decryption finishes?). It smacks of one of those ideas that seem "cool" at first but never work when you try to commit them to film. The biggest issue is with the characters, as they aren't developed in the slightest, their backgrounds aren't plausible and you can't get attached to them. There's plenty of cut-to-CIA-headquarters scenes, but everything remains unexplained, unrelated and convoluted so it doesn't join up. You can't even enjoy those revelation moments when you think back to what you overlooked earlier in the film. When you ask yourself what each character;s motivation is or how any of it came about and/or fits together, it's empty. If you want to make a film like this, get out a page of A4 paper and write down a list of cool scenes you'd like to film, then somehow link it into a disparate "plot" somehow. The coolest thing they could have done would have been to make the love interest guy a British intelligence agent intercepting/hijacking the secret material once she'd fallen for him, and even that wouldn't have been plausible as the relationship was never developed other than for a sterile sex scene that had no real purpose (it could have reflected how cold and formulaic she is). Just a turd. Avoid.
Review of Contract Killers
