Wanted (2008)

There's nothing like a decent headshot or five to liven up a dull trainride and Wanted sure did that for me the other day. Watching it on my Iphone that is. It starts out with a bang (and a nice cameo by David O'Hara) and keeps you entertained throughout the entire movie. Good stuff. James McAvoy plays this loser working at a nondescript job that he hates, living in an shoddy apartment with a bitchy girlfriend who is being plowed by his "best" friend. All of a sudden he is approached by Fox (Angelina Jolie) who tells him that his father who left him at birth has been killed and that he is to take his place in a brotherhood of assassins who keeps the world from falling apart. He doesnt really believe this at first but after being almost killed he joins the society and is subject to a rather brutal initiation, on his way to be just that kind of assassin who can control the path of the bullet a bit more than usual.

I'm a huge fan of Timur Bekmambetovs Russian fantasymovies Nightwatch and Daywatch, but when I read he was doing this I wasnt really sure if I wanted to see it. The reason? Angelina Jolie. She used to be a decent actress (watching Stolen years a couple of weeks ago reconfirmed this for me) but in the last few years she has become something else, somehting that makes it hard for you to see anything else than the person you read about constantly in the gossip press. Sure enough, she is the worst part of the movie but she is still the kind of professional that doesnt ruin the movie. But that scene, that I suppose is for all the fanboys, when she steps out of a bath naked with her back towards the camera is pretty freaky. Her arms are so thin that she looks positively anorectic. Really disgusting. But other than that, this is a really fun, violent yarn that keeps you entertained from square zero which is a good feat. It helps that you have a bunch of fun actors in the others parts like Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp and Konstantin Khabenskiy from the Watchmovies. The violence is bloody and hard, the direction is perfectly over the top and all the flashy cameramovies actually work for once. This is another one of those bubblegummovies that are perfect for a slow afternoon or a cold trainride.