Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody, Anna is the world’s most skilled contract killer. However, when Moody is brutally killed, she vows revenge for the man who taught her everything she knows. As Anna becomes entangled with an enigmatic killer, their confrontation turns deadly, and the loose ends of a life spent killing weave themselves ever tighter.
If a journeyman director is going to take the story of an orphaned waif who is transformed into a lethal assassin – something along the lines of “La Femme Nikita” – he or she had better bring something new to the party. Happily, Martin Campbell does just that in “The Protégé.”
As to be expected, the film opens in a predictable fashion with Samuel L. Jackson as Moody arriving at a pickup point – a seedy apartment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The room is strewn with four dead bodies sporting military uniforms. There he finds a young girl named Anna (Eva Nugyen Thorsen) hiding in an armoire, and he decides to take her under his wing. Fast forward thirty years and Anna (Maggie Q) is all grown up, in full blossom as a beguiling killer for hire.
The cast consists of a strong mix of supporting players including several non-Americans, which lends an air of intrigue to the captivating atmosphere. Familiar faces include Michael Keaton, who does a nice turn as Rembrandt, the liaison between the underworld in which Moody and Anna inhabit on the one hand, and respectable society which pulls the strings on the other. Keaton skillfully delivers more than his fair share of bon mots, guaranteed to elicit chuckles and outright laughter from viewers. Robert Patrick also provides a welcome presence – in this case, as a Billy Boy, a Harley-riding biker boss with an unexpected and warm intelligence.
Something refreshing to see in “The Protégé” is the fact that all of the people firing the wide variety of weapons introduced actually hit their targets most of the time. The audience is mercifully spared the endless and mindless exchange of gunfire from both sides that never seems to strike anything except empty space – so often characteristic of lesser action films. Moody, in particular, discharges his weapon only when necessary and invariably hits what he’s aiming at.
Needless to say, a movie like this can’t take itself too seriously. Richard Wenk’s clever screenplay – whose reputation for his work on “The Equalizer” and other solid action scripts precedes him – deserves much of the credit for this well-crafted narrative. Homages to classic predecessors such as “True Lies” abound. Moody admits that he has killed people, but he hastens to add that they all deserved it. Similarly in “True Lies,” Arnold Schwarzenegger is asked by Jamie Lee Curtis about whether he ever killed anyone, to which he replies, “Yeah, but they were all bad.”
The writer-director team blends the finely choreographed sequences seamlessly with a host of one-liners, consistently keeping things lively. Having directed “GoldenEye” and “Casino Royale,” as well as “The Legend of Zorro,” Martin Campbell clearly knows his way around this type of production.
All-in-all, not a bad way to spend a couple of hours at the cinema that will seem to fly by much faster. “The Protégé” transforms a potentially hackneyed and overdone plotline into something original, making this motion picture a real pleasure to watch.
In Theaters Friday, August 20th
