Killshot

Movie Name: Killshot
Year of Release: 2008
Director: John Madden
Starring: Diane Lane, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Thomas Jane, Rosario Dawson, Hal Holbrook, Don McManus, Lois Smith, Tom McCamus
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
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Synopsis and Review

A mangled film is always noticeable, and also all the more regrettable when great talent is involved. "Killshot" is one of the most obvious situations where the final output definitely doesn't equal the sum of its parts. The film is an adaptation of one of Elmore Leonard's novels, which in the past was the baseline for such iconic films as Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown", Barry Sonnenfeld's "Get Shorty" and Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight", to name but a few. The film also features a screenplay by Hossein Amini who wrote the screenplays for Ian Softley's "The Wings of the Dove" and Nicholas Winding Refn's "Drive". The feature focuses on Armand Degas, a hitman best known as "Blackbird". One of his assignments doesn't gel with a Mob boss, who suddenly wants him dead. He meets Richie Nix and they jointly embark on a scheme to extort money from a local real estate mogul. However when they show up at his office to collect, they mistake a recently fired ironworker by the name of Wayne Colson who is in the office since his wife Carmen works there, for him. Things quickly go sour, but Wayne gets the upper hand and Armand and Richie barely flee the scene. Both Armand and Richie are intent on getting back at Wayne and Carmen, and while Armand shows up at their house, forcing Carmen to fend for herself alone, Wayne is attacked by Richie in a convenience store. Wayne and Carmen soon fall under the protection of the FBI and are placed under the Witness Protection program. However Armand and Richie are resourceful and soon are on their trail once again. 

John Madden who made a name for himself with the features "Mrs. Brown" and the critically acclaimed "Shakespeare in Love", found himself with back to back disappointing features afterwards, including the reviled "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and the adaptation of David Auburn's play, "Proof". "Killshot" was very different material for him to tackle, and it's noticeable how the film struggles to have a consistent point of view, since Elmore Leonard's tone doesn't necessarily gel with John Madden's perspective on how to illustrate the events depicted in the screenplay. The film also suffers from a massive issue with character development across the entire inventory of players that are showcased throughout the narrative. Whereas Quentin Tarantino, Barry Sonnenfeld and Steven Soderbergh managed to quickly establish and define the characters to their film adaptations of Elmore Leonard's works (and those later two adaptations were written by the fantastic Scott Frank), "Killshot" feels generic and underdeveloped, particularly the central characters of Carmen and Wayne Colson, who are apparently in the middle of a marital implosion, and that's seemingly all we learn about them. The same applies to the supporting characters who appear throughout the film, including Rosario Dawson's Donna and Lois Smith's Lenore, both of whom get little screen time, but also literally not that much in terms of development and narrative impact. It's ultimately a film that for all its great talent assembled, including the luminous Diane Lane, and the versatile Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the director simply can't find a tone and a pulse for it. There's no humor, no particularly compelling characters, and the few outbursts of violence that occur, aren't a replacement for a point of view that never truly comes to life (even the subplot with the FBI comes and goes without much impact to the flow of the narrative). The production team is filled with fantastic professionals, including the solid cinematography from the talented Caleb Deschanel, and the score from Klaus Badelt. This was a missed opportunity, and also a case of mix-matched material (Carl Franklin, John Dahl, or even William Friedkin could have easily taken this material to a whole different level).