There must be some kind of psych test CIA assassins surely have to take before – or even during – their tenure on the job, right? You just don’t give military grade weaponry to a guy with a few jumpy ticks in the system. Yet sure enough, all the ones we see in the movies are nothing but a collection of messed up, emotionally crippled loose cannons about to fall right off the edge. And so it is with a fellow named Jack Collins who is not his old self yet still working undercover and taking out targets in this cookie-cutter thriller with that comes with some good and some bad. It’s All The Devil’s Men.
In the Middle East, heavily bearded and muscle-bound Jack Collins (Milo Gibson) is given a name and place and so heads off to do the deadly deed, learning that a second team has tracked him and is trying to stop him. They fail of course and the target goes down, but Collins is not altogether stable, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan hooked on meds to deal with health and mental deterioration, which is about as deep as the movie ends up going with that tinder box. Either way, Leigh (Sylvia Hoeks), a government anti-terrorism agent, ropes in Collins to join Brennan (William Fichtner) and Samuelson (Gbenga Akinnagbe) as part of a team of ‘shadow warriors’ to take out a former CIA agent now turned terrorist named McKnight (Elliot Cowan). However, there’s competition as another rogue agent named Deighton (Joseph Millson) wants his hands on McKnight’s dastardly deadly weapon, but is he double-crossing the double-crossed? Trust no one is what we learn.
Gibson is the son of that Gibson, Mel himself, and while some of the classic chisel-chined looks have fallen close to the tree, the same screen presence has not. Milo is a big bulky guy with a galvanizing set of piercing blue eyes but beyond that, has little going on in keeping him interesting. He does the thousand yard stare pretty well but has no real rhythm or cadence to his on screen action, leaving him rather bland to watch. Not only that, nothing out of his mouth lands with any weight, which is why (probably) he doesn’t do all that much talking. It’s a little frustrating ‘cuz he’s got the image right, just not the umph a movie like this demands.
Part of that falls on writer and director Matthew Hope‘s shoulders, who knows how to set up a scene but not quite bring it to life, the film a collection of tight close-ups (often with characters looking almost right into the camera) and conversations that sap the momentum right out from under it all. It’s generic brand movie making from credits to credits, the low budget certainly keeping some of this at bay, but there’s nearly no innovation to the intrigue or the action in raising any kind of suspense. And that’s not what you want when you sign on to watch a thing like this.
But hey, not all of it is bad. Fincher’s limited screen time is of course the best part, but be warned he’s not in this for long. The guy is just one of those character actors you know delivers, no matter how long they are on screen. Cowan too is all kinds of fun as the turncoat, Snidely-Whiplashing his way through his role with tongue properly set in cheek, knowing exactly what his part in all this is about. He’s genuinely a good time. Too bad he’s got no foe to give him any balance.
Wasted in all this is the wonderful Hoeks, who spends just about all her time out of the action, lifelessly being the eye in the sky for her team. When you know what she’s capable of (go watch The Best Offer) and see her in this, it’s a bit disappointing. However, she’s trapped like everyone else, in a vanilla production that is basically paint-by numbers. And the colors all together are shades of grays.
There’s a couple of good shootouts, with a short sequence on a boat at night that feels right and really should have been expanded, though it does lead to the film’s best action scene with our heroes overrun by baddies. It’s here where Hope gets hold of the reigns best, giving us a glimpse to what might have been. It’s a tightly-paced, authentic gun battle that earns some points for doing something outside the lines the rest of the movies seems settled in.
Action movies like this are a dime a dozen, low-calorie filler that taste sort of okay going down but aren’t all that memorable. It’s not like the filmmakers weren’t putting an earnest effort in, the production quality enough considering the money behind it and most of the cast doing what they can. It certainly isn’t the worst streaming on Netflix right now, dutifully serving as the new home to B-grade shooters once stuffing the shelves of your local DVD rental store.
THE GOOD: Several solid moments give some legs to the action with some decent pacing and a mostly dialogue-free story that is just cheesy enough to make it well worth a night of popcorn and cola.
THE BAD: Gibson doesn’t grab us like he should, leaving the action-hero role all but vacant with no real substance in what could have been a career-making movie.
SCORE: [wp-review-total id=”54350″]