3 Days to Kill (2014)

Director: McG

Writers: Adi Hasak, Luc Besson

Composer: Guillaume Roussel

Starring: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen, Tomas Lemarquis, Richard Sammel, Marc Andreoni, Bruno Ricci

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The question is, kill or die?

Plot: A dying CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter is offered an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

You've heard the term 'style over substance'.  That's this.  Costner is good.  He's a very effective killing machine and I loved that part but there's so much more that's on the wrong side of good that drags this picture down.  Vivi (Heard) is obnoxious as fuck.  I didn't like her from the moment she showed up and I never liked her one bit, especially her dumb-ass cliche'd moment in the last scene.  That last bit isn't Heard's fault but the rest of it is.  She was bugging the shit out of me and I wondered if maybe her character was poorly written.  Nope.  It took seconds to think of other actors that could've given better line deliveries.  This isn't Shakespeare and I realize that so I look at films like this with less scrutiny than some types of other films.  So all I ask is to be entertained.  This flick has its moments but it's mostly with Costner, his actions and dialogue.  The action scenes are edited too quickly, the father/daughter relationship probably could've been handled better and smoother.  The conceit with the bicycle is sometimes too much (especially with the music).  Again, Heard is pretty bad.  Her performance hurts the picture.  The comedy only sometimes works.  I couldn't wait for it to end.  The whole thing felt like there were one too many cooks in the kitchen, they weren't talking to each other (or couldn't agree) and were in too much of a hurry to get the meal on the table.  With more time spent on the script and getting someone to helm this that wasn't as interested in 'cool' music, super fast action and slick shots, this could've been (and should've been) a better film.  The 20th Century Fox DVD presents the film in anamorphic widescreen.  The only extras you get are a 5 minute interview with Bob Behr (they never show his name spelled and there aren't any credits at the end of the short piece) about covert operation, the theatrical trailer (anamorphic wide) and trailers for 8 other films.