Leon Lite. Here, Reno isn't a hitman, he's Fiorentini, a French cop who just hits people, rather than shooting them, while the girl with whom he's forced to get all parental is (slightly) over the age of consent. And there's none of that sort of thing anyway. What this brings to the table is relocating Fiorentini to Japan, a perfect location for the bemused demeanour at which Reno is great. He goes there after his long-missing true love turns up dead, leaving him custody of their previously-unmentioned shopaholic daughter (Hirosue), and a bank account containing $200m of embezzled Yakuza money.
For every moment of painful predictability, there's a sequence which lifts the film enough to make you forget the bad. For instance: Fiorentini and sidekick Momo (Muller) drool over weaponry; Fiorentini disposing of villains while his daughter obliviously shops; or encountering Dance Dance Revolution in the neon hell of a Tokyo arcade. This kind of side-scene is far more entertaining than the actual plot, which never really gets going. It's also kinda odd to see every Japanese speaking fluent French as a second language, though this is probably just my Anglo-centrism showing. Producer Luc Besson is big in Japan, as was Leon, and is Hirosue, and this production is clearly an attempt to appeal to that market. It's not entirely unsuccessful, and Reno is always worth watching, but too often the project's cynicism shines brightly through the cracks.
C+
