Killers Review: A Murdered Movie

Where to begin with Killers? I had a feeling that this movie wouldn’t be great but since I tend to favor action flicks, comedies or romantic comedies, I thought I’d give it a chance. But after viewing Killers, I have to say my expectations were right on target. Unfortunately, this film really wasn’t even that funny. The best parts of the movie: the gorgeous scenes in Nice, France and a shirtless Ashton Kutcher.

Recently dumped by her dorky boyfriend, Jen Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) travels with her parents for a vacation in Nice, France. Her overprotective father (Tom Selleck) whose mantra is “safety is sexy,” insists she have an adjacent room at the hotel. While on the other hand, her mother, who we don’t know much about except that she (Catherine O’Hara) enjoys a drink or two—like three glasses of wine on the plane or a pitcher of Bloody Marys for herself.

Enter Spencer (Ashton Kutcher), CIA agent/assassin who is on assignment and also in Nice. A half-naked and ready for a swim, Spencer first meets Jen on the elevator and later on meet for drinks. They hit it off immediately, spend more time together in Nice, and Jen and Spencer fall head over heels in love. Spencer admits to not really liking his job or killing people and wants out to be with Jen—he attempts to tell her about his occupation but she falls asleep so it remains a secret.

Three years later, we see a happily married Spencer and Jen living in cookie cutter suburbia. Spencer has moved on from working for the CIA or so he thinks. But after being contacted by his old boss and then attacked—Spencer and Jen, who finally discovers his secret, learn there is a $20 million dollar bounty on his head. It turns out that anyone, including their wacky neighbors or friends, could be the assassins trying to kill Spencer. The rest of the film follows Spencer and Jen as they try to discover who is behind it all and if their relationship will survive.

Something was missing from this film—nothing really pulled the viewer in and held their attention. The beginning of the film, when Jen and Spencer met each other felt slow and to be perfectly honest, was boring. However, the movie did pick up a bit with the action scenes but they were interspersed with the somewhat annoying bickering between Spencer and Jen.

Ashton Kutcher (and those would be assassins) carried most of the action for the film (not sure how much of the stunts he actually did though). I also wasn’t convinced about the onscreen chemistry between Ashton and Katherine—It just felt like there was a lack of a spark in their relationship. I do like both Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl but the movie was just sort of blah. On a side note, I hope that Katherine will take on a role in an upcoming film where she doesn’t play the dumb blonde. It gets a little old.

One last thought—Killers had songs playing throughout which is fine, except early in the film they played “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol which is the song that Leap Year (was in theaters in January and a film I previously reviewed), used in all of its promos. Bad idea because the song immediately made me think of Leap Year, a movie I really enjoyed and distracted me as I tried to watch Killers.

My advice for movie goers—Skip Killers!