By Barnaby Walter
This dire action-comedy from Monster-in-Law director Robert Luketik is currently leading the way in the race for Worst Film of 2010. Lazily scripted, shoddily acted and insultingly unfunny, it’s amazing Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl are prepared to associate themselves with it. I can’t say I’ve ever wished to be out of a cinema so much than when I sat through Killers.
It plays out like a low-rent Mr and Mrs Smith (although that was no masterpiece), with Kutcher as a hunky husband with a violent past (he used to assassinate bad guys for the authorities). His wife Heigl doesn’t discover this until she comes home to find her husband fighting off a hitman. Suddenly, it seems everyone in their middle-class suburban street is out to kill them both, so they go on the run to find out why this could be.
When I say “go on the run”, the furthest they get is a tacky hotel where an ex-spy has been murdered, and Kutcher’s place of work where they are ambushed by further unlikely attackers. They return to their beautiful home for a final showdown which provides little in the way of drama, tension, surprises or laughs. There is a late twist which won’t surprise anyone with half a brain-cell, and the closing moments are as cringe-worthy as they are unfunny. There’s also a rather cruel running joke about Heigl’s alcoholic mother who enjoys vodka at breakfast. It’s unclear why this lazy subplot is focused upon in such insensitive detail. Because alcoholics are hilarious, are they not? Everyone loves a good laugh at those with a potentially deadly addiction, don’t they? No, they don’t. Nor do they find the sight of a young woman stabbed through the torso by a spiky wooden light fixture at all amusing. But there we go. That’s Killers for you. Ill-judged, witless and rather horrible.
Killers is out now in cinemas, Certificate 12A, distributed by Lionsgate.
© Barnaby Walter 2010
No way. Yeah this isn’t a great movie but its not even 1/100th a bad as you make it sound. It is fun to watch and Heigl does a great job with the comedy. Despite the pacing and abrupt ending I was entertained. Worst film of 2010? Never. Not even close.
Hello Mick, and thank-you for your comment. I always like to hear what others think of the film reviews on Speak Up! Keep commenting and all the best.
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