The Protégé Review

[Westside Steve]

The Protégé

Lionsgate

R                 120 min

 

From what I understand, Martin Campbell, the director of the PROTÉGÉ was aiming to make a film similar to Keanu Reeves JOHN WICK with a female lead at least that speculation is on quite a few movie websites. At any rate if he was only focusing on a confusing plot and gratuitous violence, I guess he came close. Maybe because the protagonist Anna Maggie Q and Keanu Reeve share a vague look and deadpan performance? Who knows? All I can tell you is that for me JOHN WICK worked and the PROTÉGÉ did not.

Moody (Samuel L Jackson who in my opinion is getting a little over saturated these days) a world-renowned assassin who has made a lot of enemies over his years and is apparently dying of a consumption like disease. His Protégé, if you will, Anna (Q) is a hot, young and extremely dangerous Asian woman.  We will find out the nature of the relationship later in the movie but it's not really as creepy as you may think. Early on in the film he is brutally murdered and Anna sets out on a quest to find his killer and exact revenge. Fair enough, that's as good a reason for a movie as any. She appears to have figured it out even though the reasons are foggy at best and the situation keeps shifting inexplicably. Enter Rembrandt (Michael Keaton) who fits somewhere in the organization of bad guys that knocked off Moody. I'm guessing Campbell, being from New Zealand and probably more used to sheep, mistakenly thought there was some kind of sexual chemistry between Anna and Rembrandt. Personally, I thought these nearly seventy-year-old Keaton was miscast as a sex symbol and tough guy especially teamed up with a very desirable chick 30 years his junior. Hey at least it wasn't Samuel L. Too bad that's a major part of the film since it falls flat. Now I totally get revenge flicks but since we know from the beginning that Moody has killed lots and lots of people most of which have business associates friends relatives lovers Etc. who probably wish him harm it's hard to work up much empathy. And while I certainly didn't like the bad guys, or understand why in particular they wanted him dead, I think Campbell could have gone a little bit farther to clear that up just a touch more hateful thereby making their demise a lot more fun. And though I won't tell you exactly what it was (for reasons mentioned above) the ending itself still kind of failsforfails for me. I'm sure somebody else will like this better than I did but the best I can do is

C

WSS