Killers looked like a decent diversion for an otherwise gloomy day. I decided to watch the movie with the flip of a coin. I wasn't really sure which film I wanted to watch and Kutcher won the coin toss. The film wasn't necessarily bad, but it was predictable, derivative and silly. However, it was entertaining, action-packed and mindless fun.
Spencer Aimes (Kutcher) is a contract killer who works for the government. He decides to walk away from it all when he runs into a sheltered girl in Nice, France (Jen - Katherine Heigl). Spencer longs for normalcy which Jen can provide him. Or so he thinks. After three years of living the American dream in a mass produced subdivision in suburbia, Spencer's past comes back to haunt him.
Spencer's past is a mystery to Jen, who is suddenly thrust into a world of hit-men all vying for a twenty million dollar bounty on Spencer's head. Oh, and to complicate matters, Jen is pregnant. Just when the couple are beginning to assert their dependency from Jen's over-protective father (Tom Selleck), she is exposed to a lifetime supply of the adrenaline she has missed. Danger lurks around every corner and may be closer than they could ever imagine.
While Killers was entertaining, it was ridiculous. You have to suspend disbelief in order to accept the very premise of the film. The relationships are contrived and the bounty insane. If you consider the bounty on UBL was only twenty-five million, why would there be a twenty million dollar bounty on a guy that lives in suburbia and is minding his own business? The premise makes no sense. And when you consider the effort that went into placing sleeper cells around our star it makes even less sense. The characters were flat, the dialogue average and the story predictable. Overall, this film relies on action more than derivative writing.
Ashton Kutcher as an action hero? Maybe. Probably not. Tom Selleck as an action hero? No doubt. The pairing was actually pretty good. While Kutcher wouldn't be my first choice for the lead, he handled it well. I liked Heigl as his wife, although they took her characteristics to the extreme, which got annoying. She did a decent job of reeling me back in despite her character flaws. The casting was slightly above average. For a film like this, I might have cast some roles differently (after making them a bit more three dimensional).
Killers is rated PG-13. The film had some strong language, plenty of action, violence and some sexual themes. The rating seems to stem primarily from the violence, which includes plenty of shoot-outs and killings with a "close to zero" gore-factor. This film seemed pretty tame to me. I don't know that I would necessarily censor this film by age group. It wasn't much more graphic than the average television program. The movie has a run time of one hour and forty minutes.
I actually enjoyed this highly derivative film. Even with the flat characters and predictable plot. I don't know what appealed to me about this film. Maybe it was the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of suburbia. Maybe it was the nicely choreographed action scenes. It certainly wasn't the story, which has been done before. It's hard for me to pin this one down. I wasn't blown away, but I was entertained. For that reason, I will give this film a mild recommendation. 6/10.