Quick synopsis: Marvin is a mild-manner realtor whose past (and ex-girlfriend) comes back to haunt him

I like Ke Huy Quan, he’s one of those people who you can easily imagine being late for an awards show because he needed to buy a coat for a stranger he saw who looked cold. I’m also becoming a fan of Marshawn Lynch, who seems to always go all out into ridiculousness (for proof of this, watch Bottoms. As in, the film called Bottoms, don’t watch strangers arsecheeks, that’s weird).

So with that in mind, it kind of (love) hurts me to say that this movie is not good. The concept is good, but the execution is lacking. The fight scenes are mostly okay, but some are shot with a lack of clarity so it’s difficult to figure out what is going on. It also suffers from a lack of “that” scene. There’s no fight scene that you can tell people “You need to see this” and pull it up on Youtube to show them. There are attempts at this (i get the feeling the fight in the club near the end was an attempt at this). There a few moments within the scenes which are fun, teeth being ripped out by duct tape was a particularly gruesome and wince-inducing moment.

There’s a foundation of a good idea here; an action-based romcom could work. But the romantic notions feel really tacked on. There are two main romances, both of which feel kind of abusive in different ways. I had no desire to see the romances work, I didn’t buy into them as real or heartwarming. We’re not given a reason to care about the potential relationships. I did have a fairly decent joke/Always Sunny reference here, but I had to delete it as it will suit my review of Matt and Mara much more accurately.

If you took away the romance angle then it would improve the experience, but it would also mean the film would lose its hook, its gimmick, and would then have to advertise itself as “a mild-mannered man turns out to be a hitman”, which is kind of cliche at this point. That’s another aspect I felt was underdeveloped; we are constantly told how Marvin was a vicious hitman, dangerous and incredibly sadistic. But we never really see it. We get flashbacks of the aftermath, but we don’t get moments of the past version of him torturing and harming people; so it’s hard to buy him as a reformed hitman, because we only see him on the defensive. He doesn’t even kill the people hunting him, in fact it seems like he’s doing his best to make sure they don’t die. I know “he’s reformed and now a nice guy”, but if someone is trying to decapitate you, I think you’re morally allowed to kick them in the head until their brain resembles blueberry pie.

The lack of deaths leads to my other problem; the lack of consequences. Characters get tased in public (with witnesses), their are fights in offices (which at the very least, the cleaners would notice when they come in the next day), and his boss gets murdered. None of those moments matter. The police don’t seem to be ienterested in this random uptick in violence, there’s no news report about someone being found dead with a straw in his eye, none of the action scenes have any consequence, they’re just levels in a video game the main character has to get through.

Now onto the good, the performances are all good. And there are moments where the fight scene works. It’s also sweet at times (but never enough to keep momentum). And I do appreciate that is at least TRYING something different. There are also some very funny moments.

In summary, a mediocre film that’s about 2 rewrites away from being a 10/10.