3 Days to Kill (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 117 minutes
Directed by: McG
Starring: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen, Richard Sammel, Eriq Ebouaney, Tómas Lemarquis, Raymond J. Barry
KRS release

Kevin Costner plays Ethan Renner, a CIA agent who has seen too many a mission. He discovers he is sick and so is released from the CIA. He decides to travel, go to Paris and try to reconcile with his estranged teenage daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld) who lives with her mother, his ex-wife Christine (Connie Nielsen).

It has been five years since he has seen them and so he knows it is not going to be easy rendezvous. When he talks to Christine, he vows to her that his extremely dangerous days are over. He wants to become a father again and be present in Zoey’s life. However, trouble follows him.

The film works best when it is going full speed ahead and when the pyrotechnics are all over the screen

Vivi (Amber Heard), a mysterious agent, confronts him. She wants him to kill two arms dealers nicknamed The Wolf (Richard Sammel) and The Albino (Tómas Lemarquis). In exchange she will give him access to an experimental drug that will make him live a longer life.

Meanwhile, his daughter is not making things easy as she goes to a rave party that goes horribly wrong, and gets into trouble at school.

3 Days to Kill feels very much like the Luc Besson movie Taken. This is understandable since this Costner vehicle was made under the EuropaCorp production umbrella, with the difference being that the European sensibility of Besson’s production is combined with McG’s Hollywood flash and dash style.

This film works best when it is going full speed ahead and when the pyrotechnics are all over the screen. This film brings together McG’s love for action and Hollywood blockbuster extravaganzas with the comedy and emotional tones that Besson likes to wear naively in his movies – a fact his fans love. The result is an action movie that is firmly in comic book territory and does not make any effort to play it real at all; instead it moves at full speed in an enjoyable fashion.

Costner fits in well with the grizzled veteran role. He seems to be playing an amalgamation of the cowboy characters he has played on screen throughout his career. I believe this is the first time he is playing an indestructible hero and he seems to enjoy it. This leads to an appealing screen presence that gives the film its core. Meanwhile, Heard is given a lot of attitude and plenty of tight outfits, making her an Underworld type of action heroine.

Steinfield is given all the cutesy and soppy scenes as the troubled teenager who has to reconnect with her distant father.

The movie will appeal most to fans of the Besson type of action movie. The film is bent on destroying as much scenery as possible with computer-generated effects thrown into the equation as it tries to balance between being an action movie and a thriller.

On the other hand, it’s about a father and daughter bonding. This is handled in Besson’s boyish style (he is also one of the writers) as he inserts these sequences in between exciting car chase sequences and shoot-outs.

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