Director: Ariel Vromen
Starring: Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Gal Gadot, Michael Pitt, Jordi Mollà, Amaury Nolasco, Alice Eve, Antje Traue, Scott Adkins, Colin Salmon, Ryan Reynolds.
Iceman director, Ariel Vromen brings us an interesting thriller that has a feel of Bourne meets Total Recall. Set in present day, it has Kevin Costner stomping all over London as dangerous ex-con come antihero Jericho. It's a strange character, an emotionless, unbalanced serial criminal who doesn't know love, guilt or compassion, suddenly gets a new set of memories implanted against his will. What comes with these implants is a new set of skills and emotions he's really not accustomed to. Suddenly he can fight to survive, understand chemistry and order a latte in Français. He also starts to learn about emotions and finds a brand new level of empathy whilst his bad attitude seeps through, sometimes violently. I like the bad 'hurt me, I hurt you more' side of Jericho and is it wrong to find him fun? I wanted to see more of him get angry but there's some great parts that have you rooting for him. It's an all star cast with Ryan Reynolds only playing a small part so don't let the trailer fool you. Wonder Woman Gal Gadot, Gary Oldman, with a pinch of Tommy Lee Jones and smaller but familiar faces. Bad Boy regular and Spanish superstar Jordi Mollà (Bad Boys II, Riddick) plays the villain alongside sidekick Man of Steel bad girl, Antje Traue (recently watched Despite the Falling Snow.) It's fast paced for 113mins as we see Jericho rampage around London carelessly and it looks like Costner had fun. It's certainly one of his better recent roles. There's some good action but I wanted more; I suppose that isn't a bad thing as it means I was enjoying it. And it isn't loaded with cliches making it quite refreshing. It's not outstanding and needed a stronger script but it's better than expected, definitely entertaining. I really liked the character Jericho and I'm not sure if Gary Oldman's last words is a hint for a sequel but if they do I would want more bad ass Jericho. "Cheers"
Running Time: 8
The Cast: 7
Performance: 8
Direction: 7
Story: 7
Script: 6
Creativity: 7
Soundtrack: 7
Job Description: 8
The Extra Bonus Point: 5 for bad-ass DGAF Jericho.
70% 7/10
