Chief of Station

I had recently sat through, and thoroughly enjoyed, the 2023 movie "The Bricklayer", and thus I opted to sit down and watch this 2024 action thriller titled "Chief of Station", as it also had Aaron Eckhart in the leading role.

Sure, I had never heard about this movie prior to sitting down and watching it, so I didn't really know what I was in for here, aside from it being an action thriller. So writer George Mahaffey and director Jesse V. Johnson essentially had every opportunity to entertain me.

The storyline was watchable, sure, but at the same time it was also somewhat bland and forgettable. Writer George Mahaffey didn't exactly conjure up something grand or thrilling here. "Chief of Station" didn't manage to stand out from so many other action thrillers like it, and thus it was a bit of a disappointment. Now, don't jump to conclusions here, because I am not saying that it was a bad movie, not at all, it definitely had some good parts. But overall it was essentially just a generic action thriller.

This wasn't exactly the highlight of Aaron Eckhart's career, nor was he particular distinguishable in the movie. It was as if he was running a bit on auto-pilot. There were a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, joining Aaron Eckhart on the screen, with the likes of Olga Kurylenko, Nick Moran, James Faulkner and Daniel Bernhardt.

There is a fair amount of action in the movie, and that definitely helps to keep the movie afloat, and thus director Jesse V. Johnson didn't fully deliver a dud.

Watchable for what it was, but don't get your hopes up for "Chief of Station", as it was a rather bland and generic action thriller.

My rating of "Chief of Station" lands on a five out of ten stars.

...

And I only said that out of respect. Sometimes the film is so bad that it becomes good in a sort of back to front logic .... this here does not

It is thoroughly bad through and through the only saving grace and this has been mentioned in other comments is the fact that it moves around beautiful cities... Everything is spelt out for you as if anything more complicated than a comix For a six-year-old would make your brain misfire.

The fight scenes are so bad we wonder why anybody included them here; they make absolutely no sense they must have been choreographed by some canines at the pound Who could not find a home and had to been given a task to keep them occupied. It is an absolute shocker

And yet and yet if you can fully disengage your mind for an hour and a half and you really have nothing else to do and I mean absolutely nothing else to do you might get through it

A solid three for Budapest and other locations which might or might not be what they claim to be.

Director Jesse V Johnson is better known for his collaboration with martial arts actor Scott Adkins in movies such as The Debt Collector.

In Chief of Station he goes for espionage but comes up short both in action and story.

Ben Malloy (Aaron Eckhart) is the CIA station chief whose world falls apart after his wife's death.

However Ben is drawn back into the shadowy world, after his former adversaries are killed. He learns that his son is in danger and discovers that he cannot trust anyone, even his former allies.

From very much the early scenes, you can guess who will turn against Ben Malloy. There is nothing here in terms of a good story.

That leaves the action scenes to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately Eckhart is no Adkins. He is perfunctory with the action scenes but the script is not good enough for him to stretch his acting chops.

I love the actors in this movie but they did themselves a disservice in this movie. I find it hard to believe that the chief is station of Moscow could be so affected by his wife death six months later that he's resting his head on a fridge full of ham and unable to live normal life. Its a shame because the movie actually has potential if only they had given more depth to the characters and a little more sophistication to the story line, but unfortunately the plot lines are vague, the acting is erratic, more due to direction than skill. Thoroughly disappointing movie. Could have been so much better.

Starts good, money spent on the action but honestly how can a director miss key important areas...half way through it's becomes more like a b movie... I had to send it to my daughter a future continuation director to use as an example! For example (1) the lock on the door opened by the necklace! It's a padlock... with a screw on hinge... one kick and the door would open.. or just break in through the glass windows! Seriously all that effort for the necklace... to open a padlock!! Should have been access to a bank vault container or secret sealed room.. (2) shooting in the warehouse... with 2 trained soldiers shooting straight down the corridor at him... in a million years a kid wouldn't miss that shot! (3) car exits warehouse past the soldiers and crashes... time it takes for the soldiers to get outside they must have been on a coffee break!! (4) bullet holes in the driver side door of his car! But he's still ok (5) not ducking down when driving towards 2 gunmen, fairly sure thats not typical human behaviour (6) the last scene in Paris looks like a Hollywood stage set... anyway so many more but mainly in the last half of the movie...almost like they sacked a continuation director half way through or ran out of money... would have cost nothing to fix this and make it a way better movie. I'll happily review movies for free lol.