Aleksander Bach’s slick and gleaming production, which resembles a television ad at times, is a constant flow of high-speed action and shallow characterisations and doesn’t bare close scrutiny. Its two screenwriters, Skip Woods and Michael Finch, have plundered the genre for cliché after cliché and have cobbled together a story that works within the familiar spy-thriller frame.
The plot abounds with genetically engineered super-hitmen, of which bald-headed Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is one. In the opening sequences he is chasing after a beautiful woman, Katia (Hannah Ware), who we suspect he intends to kill, but we soon discover he is actually saving her from another hitman ( Zachery Quinto).
Why do they want to kill her? She has a secret, of course. Her elderly, dying father (Ciarán Hinds) was the mastermind behind creating these unstoppable hitmen. But he has disappeared and the organisation for which these hitmen work is determined to find him so he can start working on another batch of fearless and emotionless killers.
As the story rapidly unspools, allegiances change frequently and confusingly with action around every corner. The body count goes through the roof. This is an outrageous film with gimmicks tossed in such as skyscraper-dimming electrocutions, mysterious torture serums and asthma inhalers rigged as bombs.
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