Cast: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Running Time: 110 mins
The film involves a group of vigilante assassins known as the Fraternity who murder the targets given to them by a faulty loom guided by fate. The various defects in the weaving provide the names of its targets through a binary code which is then translated by leader of the assassins Sloan (Morgan Freeman). The film's protagonist and narrator is Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a meek, quiet guy with an uninteresting occupation and an unfaithful girlfriend.
He gets caught up in the world of the assassins when he is integrated into the group in order to kill his assassin father's murderer who happens to also be a renegade assassin. The plot takes predictable turns right throughout the film but is packed with jaw dropping action sequences which are too ridiculous to even fathom. Wanted is a typical summer action flick which follows the trend of recent films by being loosely based on a comic book series by Mark Millar.
The film begins with one of the most ridiculous action scenes you are likely to witness this summer, but in all honesty it was capped off with a pretty cool set of one-liners. In fact I can sum the entire film up by just describing the first scene. Wanted is relentless as it treats its audience with a barrage of heavy action sequences that are over-the-top and sometimes just plain stupid. The film in fact is guaranteed to be entertaining as far as summer time action films are concerned plainly due to its unrelenting surplus of hardcore action. The film wastes no time with intricate storylines and characterization. Of course the downside is that the film has absolutely no depth and a script which was probably written by a bunch of teenagers. But I don't think that audiences would have been looking for a great plotline to a film that was so obviously meant to contain purely entertaining/adrenaline pumping scenes from start to finish.
Wanted contains a ludicrous story with aspects of the film being as poorly thought out as skinny dipping in Alaska. Background details such as a few chosen people in the world being able to control their heart rate in order to gain retarded powers and the physically impossible manner in which a mere twist of a wrist can curve the trajectory of a bullet may raise a few eyebrows or in fact leave the cinema. I mean with no apparent funding they receive their orders from pieces of woven cloth. The film also suffers from a very misguided and questionable philosophy which suggests that somewhere down the line somebody had a very broken moral compass.
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So for those who do not appreciate films purely based on unrealistic gunfights, car chases and an embarrassingly corny script, the film is definitely one to stay away from. Though it is undeniably entertaining and fun, the film does not have a plot even close to being provocative or original and neither are the explanations to the aspects of the fraternity of assassins any good. Besides, Morgan Freeman's (Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy) performance as the spearhead of a deadly group of assassins and his theatrics with curving bullets are as nauseating as his performance in the film The Contract. Angelina Jolie (Gia, Girl Interrupted) quite sickeningly once again plays a role as an intimidating badass assassin who is almost all knowing all the time. In most of her recent films she plays the same one dimensional character and she continues to play another predictable Jolie character in Wanted. However, I cannot think of any other actress in Hollywood who could do a better job as such a stereotypically forgettable character. Seeing the geeky McAvoy (Atonement, Last King of Scotland) as a swashbuckling assassin was disturbing too but I'm sure it would've captured the imaginations of many in the audience. In his Hollywood debut Russian born Director Timur Bekmambetov does well to keep the explosions and the bullets as frequent as possible but does little to be remembered.
The film is deeply flawed and certainly not meant to hold neither any depth nor any memorable performances. In fact I'm pretty sure the film would be completely forgotten in a short while but I'd be lying if in its complete farcical absurdity I did not find that one ounce of excitement. I wouldn't blame anyone from having fun with this film as it is no doubt, a roller coaster ride of ridiculous action with no strings attached.
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