1 stunningly-flawed-disaster out of 4
Set against a backdrop of a warm and welcoming Paris, director McG’s latest arthouse-thriller mashup is a disaster of a movie that attempts to tell four stories, spectacularly failing at all of them. Lacking in depth, emotion, and self-awareness, Luc Besson and Adi Hasak’s script juggles too many ideas and takes itself far too seriously. Had Besson and Hasak attempted to balance only one of the film’s four conceits with just a small amount of self-examination, they still would have failed, but the resulting production would have been mediocre instead of disastrous.
One of the only redeeming qualities found in 3 Days to Kill is Kevin Costner, and a reminder of the man’s talent for bringing sanity and humanity to otherwise insane productions.
Starring as Ethan Renner, Costner’s role is ridiculously convoluted. First, he is an American hitman working to bring two terrorists to justice. Second, he is an American hitman working to bring two terrorists to justice, while simultaneously battling inoperable cancer. Third, he is an American hitman working to bring two terrorists to justice, while simultaneously battling inoperable cancer, while struggling to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Fourth, he has to do all of this while somehow dealing with a family of squatters who have taken refuge in his apartment in Paris.
The audience is frequently reminded that Renner does not belong in France by bringing up the fact that the man can’t speak a word of French – over and over again.
Giving sole credit to Costner is unfair to the talented actress who has the misfortune of playing his occasionally rebellious and frequently manipulative daughter, Zoey. Hailee Steinfeld (of True Grit fame) plays her part with the kind of subtlety and nuance that such a script calls for but doesn’t realize it needs. We see her toy with her father, lash out at him, and wear wigs to scare him into thinking she’s dyed her hair red – is insulting. Though we see Steinfeld act with a knowing twinkle and her tongue firmly in her cheek, which is relieving.
Just in case her family troubles aren’t enough, Zoey has prom looming on the horizon.
The film spends quite a bit of time reassuring its audience that Ethan isn’t a bad father. We’re reminded that he’s a man from a different time, who isn’t used to the custom and procedure of the modern day. His inadequacy, the films argues, does not stem from a lack of love on his part, but from a lack of knowing how to parent. A repeated joke lies in how much Ethan and the criminals he interacts with understand his pain in raising Zoey.
With the small amount of characterization on display, no matter how much we may try to like Ethan, there’s nothing but a shadow of a character that we can cling to. It’s not that Costner doesn’t do a good job with the material he has, it’s that he has little material to work with in the first place.
We see Ethan try to be a good father, and we see him struggle with his parenting, his illness, and his job. We understand that he finds himself in difficult situations, but beyond these facts, there is little in the way of emotional connection to identify with him. Ironically, by failing to create any semblance of a character, 3 Days to Kill gives the audience an understanding of what it’s like to be Zoey.
Faint praise must be given to Theirry Arbogast’s cinematography. He refuses to abide by the shaky-cam standard for action sequences and car chases, and for that he must be commended. What the audience sees is the full sequence of events, including every punch, kick, and throw. Furthermore, Arbogast paints Paris with a warm orange hue that helps ease the melodramatic strain. There are several cinematic flaws, and the orange palette grows tiring after the third or fourth time Ethan and Zoey connect, but it’s not completely terrible, and that means something here.
There is little else to take away from the film’s plot, production, or characters other than, perhaps, that it’s important for parents to stay emotionally connected to their children – although, no one has actually ever disagreed with this advice or suggested otherwise.