I found this movie on Netflix streaming. Sean Penn looks good and buff for a man in his 50s. The movie was directed by the same one who did the Liam Neeson "Taken" (2008) so many similarities are understandable.
It starts in 2006, the Congo, Sean Penn as Jim is there nominally for airstrip building but has a dark job on the side as a mercenary. A large corporation needs the Minister of Minerals killed and a team is put together. It is a motorcade of sorts, Jim gets the signal, his shot is perfect, but he has to be whisked out of the country quickly.
He has to leave behind his girlfriend, pretty (and 30-something) Jasmine Trinca as Annie, with no explanation. But their team member and friend, Javier Bardem as Felix, promises to watch over her. He does more than that, when Jim locates them 8 years later in Barcelona they are married.
But just before that Jim is back in the Congo, this time purely for humanitarian reasons. he is working to drill a water well for the locals when some armed men show up, clearly to kill Jim. With his special OPs training he manages to escape but leaves the area for London. There he looks up old cronies, members of the assassination squad, and finds 2 of them already dead. It is a systematic hunt and kill, those who know what went down in 2006 need to be eliminated.
Ray Winstone is really good in a somewhat small role as Jim's buddy, Stanley. And Idris Elba has a small role as an Interpol agent, Barnes.
The overall story is a good one, the last 1/3 of the movie is a complex chase and hunt with lots of gunfire and lots of people dying. It gets a bit messy and in a way partially obscures the good build-up.
SPOILERS: Jim does manage to get the best of all those trying to kill him and, with Interpol, exposes the truth, but Jim has to go to prison for his crime. Felix was one of those killed so the last scene has Jim showing up in the Congo, meeting Annie, once he is out of prison. A feel-good ending.
It starts in 2006, the Congo, Sean Penn as Jim is there nominally for airstrip building but has a dark job on the side as a mercenary. A large corporation needs the Minister of Minerals killed and a team is put together. It is a motorcade of sorts, Jim gets the signal, his shot is perfect, but he has to be whisked out of the country quickly.
He has to leave behind his girlfriend, pretty (and 30-something) Jasmine Trinca as Annie, with no explanation. But their team member and friend, Javier Bardem as Felix, promises to watch over her. He does more than that, when Jim locates them 8 years later in Barcelona they are married.
But just before that Jim is back in the Congo, this time purely for humanitarian reasons. he is working to drill a water well for the locals when some armed men show up, clearly to kill Jim. With his special OPs training he manages to escape but leaves the area for London. There he looks up old cronies, members of the assassination squad, and finds 2 of them already dead. It is a systematic hunt and kill, those who know what went down in 2006 need to be eliminated.
Ray Winstone is really good in a somewhat small role as Jim's buddy, Stanley. And Idris Elba has a small role as an Interpol agent, Barnes.
The overall story is a good one, the last 1/3 of the movie is a complex chase and hunt with lots of gunfire and lots of people dying. It gets a bit messy and in a way partially obscures the good build-up.
SPOILERS: Jim does manage to get the best of all those trying to kill him and, with Interpol, exposes the truth, but Jim has to go to prison for his crime. Felix was one of those killed so the last scene has Jim showing up in the Congo, meeting Annie, once he is out of prison. A feel-good ending.