Rating: C+
Dir: Kimani Ray Smith
Star: Charlie Weber, Madison Bailey, Marie Avgeropoulos, Jon Voight
This workmanlike spy flick stars Weber as Peter, a CIA operative married to another employee, Elena, who is expecting their first child. A mission goes wrong, Elena gets shot and loses her baby. Seventeen years later, after quitting the CIA, he’s a painter living quietly in the Pacific Northwest. Suddenly, a teenage girl, Sophia (Bailey), shows up claiming Elena sent her to Peter, followed swiftly by the arrival of a team sent by CIA Section Chief Piasecki (Avgeropoulos) to bring in Peter. After disposing of them he contacts his old boss, Byrne (Voight) and Peter learns the grounds were his possession of classified material, making him a threat to national security. Which is news to the ex-agent.
From here, things occur in more or less the way you would expect. Peter has to figure out what intel he has, why Piasecki wants his hide and, probably most importantly, decide which of the people around him can and cannot be trusted. [Assuming the answer is “nobody”, will likely be his best policy. This is not much of a spoiler alert, if you’ve seen enough entries in the genre] For it turns out Elena, who remained working for the CIA, had found evidence of a particularly malevolent project. She has now gone missing, but it turns out had sent the evidence to Peter. Those involved in the scheme will stop at nothing to make sure their actions remain under the radar.
The main elements here are familiar, and I’m not sure the stuff on the fringes move the needle much. For instance, that Byrne is Peter’s foster father. Or that a childhood accident left Peter with hypersensitive hearing. These are both somewhat relevant by end, yet the film might have worked just as well without them. Rather than the plot, I’d say the characters are what kept me interested. Weber does a decent job enlivening his stock character, of the spy who isn’t allowed to retire, while Voight could knock out his role before getting his breakfast in bed. Bailey is less successful, at least in the early going, seeming not much more than a whiny teenager. To be fair… not entirely the case.
The action is reasonably well-handled, Peter demonstrating a terse approach to close-quarters combat. The impact of the John Wick films has been a positive one on the genre even if, as here, the results are best described as “Diet Wick”. By which I mean, if it’s possible to deliver head shots in a low-key way, this does it. Max Montesi also makes some impression as an oddball killer with a fondness for techno. The script does seem unaware that the CIA is basically not allowed to operate on American soil, though again to be fair, the project here seems highly unsanctioned too. While this likely won’t make much of a ripple in cinemas, I was adequately entertained enough on the couch, not to feel aggrieved.
The film is in theatres today, and available to buy on digital from January 9.