Killers | Solomon Kane - Prague, Czech Republic

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The setup already feels out there, not helped by some peculiar casting/characterizations: first, we´re introduced to Jen Kornfeldt (Heigl), who´s recovering from a bad breakup and travelling to France with her parents (Tom Selleck and Catharine O´Hara). Heigl, a beautiful and winning actress, is unsuccessfully trying to play nerdy and socially awkward in these early scenes. Next we meet Spencer Aimes, a charming CIA agent who Kutcher plays as James Bond-by-Tom Cruise; we aren´t buying it from the outset, and it doesn´t help that Kutcher (and the film) show a total lack of conviction in the role.

OK, the setup stretches credibility, but we can accept that. So what´s up next? The two fall in love, she finds out he´s a secret agent man, and their love is tested as they´re targeted by? Nah: flash-forward three years, past any romance, and ex-spy Spencer and Jen are happily married and living in a mini-mansion down the street from her parents in suburban Georgia. Then – wham! – as Spencer is ‘discovered´ and a price is put on his head, it turns out all of the couples´ friends and colleagues and neighbors from the past three years were actually bounty hunters (or ‘killers´ as the film so eloquently puts it), and are now attempting to kill them.

Killers is part of a new breed of buddy-action-romantic-comedy, which takes the old 80s buddy cop picture (48 hrs., Stakeout, Lethal Weapon) and injects a healthy dose of formula rom-com. Previously this year, we´ve seen Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston in The Bounty Hunter and Steve Carrell and Tina Fey in Date Night; up next there´s Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Knight and Day. These movies spread themselves over a number of popular genres in an attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but end up spreading themselves too thin and satisfying no one.

When we first meet Kane (let´s ignore the obviously digital establishing shots that open the film and pop up throughout), he and his men are invading a castle in search of treasure and murdering all those in their path. He gets more than he bargained for, however, when he come face-to-face and sword-to-sword with the Devil´s Reaper, who has come to collect his soul (for reasons, uh, less than fully explained). It´s a dynamite opening, operating at a larger scale than the film´s budget would indicate, and sets the tone for the rest of the film.

Later, Kane (effectively played by James Purefoy with a Hugh Jackman-like swagger) has renounced his evil ways but is kicked out of the monastery that has served as his sanctuary (because, uh, one of the monks had a ‘vision´). He begins a journey back to his home land, which he left as a child (in flashbacks, Max von Sydow plays his father), refusing to even defend himself against a gang of robbers. On his way, he encounters the benevolent Crowthorn family, headed by patriarch William (Pete Postlewaite), who offers to aid him in his journey.

But the lands are ravaged by evil, and soon Solomon finds himself drawn back into a world of violence, which he uses – for good, this time – to save his soul. For the main plot thread in the film, the logistics of soul-taking and soul-saving are pretty thinly sketched; we seem to be going by hearsay most of the time, with the Reaper claiming Kane made a deal with the devil and lost his soul, and William saying he can do something else to save it. But at this point I´m looking too deep: it´s clear who is good and who is evil here, now let´s get down to the action.