Classified

The worst screen writing and acting I've seen in at least the past 20 years. Not worth the time to press the play button. Just terrible terrible, terrible, terrible! And it's ridiculous that it requires me to write a minimum of 600 words for this review to even be accepted - but if you must... I love Actor Eckart but even he must have been embarrassed by day 3 of production on the horrible writing and lack of quality plot! The fighting was totally unrealistic, but the plot was even worse - disconnected, confusing and illogical. The movie seemed to be in slow motion and overdramatizing every single screen.

After 20 minutes, this film nosedives into the ground and slowly implodes, leaving another 80 minutes of predictable dross.

It starts out as a stylish thriller, but the script, and the 'by the numbers plot' let it down, as does the terrible, terrible casting. Tim Roth hasn't done a decent film in almost a decade and is pretty embarrassing in this. The less said about Abigail Breslin, the better. She is a disaster.

This is probably the only film you'll see which has a sniper sequence where the sniper 'hides' in a pool of light. The chief bad guy is pretty funny with his massive GPS screen somehow tracking Eckhart's every move until the plot requires "he must be somewhere that hasn't got a good GPS signal".

The action scenes are boring; John Wick lite.

I have to give him some credit though. Roel Reine did a good job with the cinematography and the soundtrack.

In short, f-grade acting, f-grade dialog and the whole thing looks like it was filmed on a Samsung S9+ and then color graded with a potato. Seriously, a random, free LUT from the Internet slapped on everything.

Drone spots seem to be done with a DJI Air, main lighting dive with a subtle Aputure without bounce or softbox.

Also, the entire island of Malta seems to be devoid of other people or bystanders. Rooms are also very very foggy. Shootout scenes take place within a 10m radius and were filmed with compression ratio 200:1, with weird purple smoke explosions.

Elementary school students would have done a better job with their iPhones and some flower on a rainy afternoon on a Sunday.

Can't believe they dragged Aaron Eckhart into this.

I like Tim Roth. I like Aaron Eckhard. What drove them to take part in such a disaster?

The combat scenes are so extremely dumb that Shoot Em Up looks like a documentary compared to this. They managed to mess up even the slightest detail. Mercenaries without body armor, not hitting a barn door from close up, even when they surprise the protagonist. Sure. Oh, and always attack one by one, so the hero wins!

Nothing makes any sense. Fittingly, the CGI is awful.

And, yeah, the rest of the "story" fits right in. The premise is so idiotic that even a little more effort on the writing couldn't have saved it. My guess is they knew, so they didn't bother anyway.

The plot (if you actually consider it such) has holes big enough to sail an oil tanker through. A top notch hitman goes off course and is not in the slightest interested how his boss can call him on a payphone next to him?

The action sequences are numerous, but absolutely unrealistic. Bad guys with machine guns can't hit stationary targets, but the good guy is able to use a shotgun like a sniper rifle?

I have seen better character development in B class porn flicks. How they got Eckart and Roth to participate in such drivel is beyond me.

If i could give this movie a minus score i would gladly do so.