Back in the early 90s, the emergence of Quentin Tarantino sparked a mini-boom in crime thrillers, some good (Natural Born Killers), some less so (The Boondock Saints). Based on the novel Gun Monkeys, this new Pierce Brosnan vehicle is a throwback to that era in almost every way possible – and that’s largely at the root of what’s both good and bad about it.
We open with a flash-forward to a motor-vehicle graveyard in Florida where Brosnan, AKA hitman Charlie Swift, is hanging about looking shifty. An unseen antagonist orders him to put his hands in the air and take his shirt off. He complies, and then voiceover from Brosnan essentially follows the format of the record scratch meme (that intones “Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got into this situation …”). You’ll spend the next 90 minutes finding out, and for the most part that’s a brisk and painless journey that romps merrily along, powered by its own cliches and memories of better movies, in a way that’s more comfortingly familiar than wearisome.
