What a waste of classy Kevin
3 Days To Kill (12A)
Verdict: Preposterous thriller
KEVIN COSTNER brings some desperately-needed gravitas to this otherwise laughably preposterous thriller about a veteran CIA hitman who must complete a series of kills while also suffering from cancer.
And, as if that were not enough for a chap to worry about, trying to re-engage with his estranged wife and teenage daughter.
The story was conceived and co-written by Luc Besson, which is warning enough to expect wholesale nonsense, even before Ethan Renner (Costner) is instructed to eliminate the world’s most dangerous terrorist, known as The Wolf, and his sinister acolyte, The Albino.
Plausibility seems to be the last thing on the mind of director McG (Charlie’s Angels), as baddies fall like ninepins on the streets of Paris, where Renner’s fragrantly long-suffering wife Christine ( Connie Nielsen) lives with their moody teenage daughter, Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld).
The ambiguous title refers not only to Renner’s assassination brief — given to him by a ludicrously vampish, Ferrari- driving, not- sosecret agent called Vivi (Amber Heard) — but to him taking sole charge of Zooey for a few days while her mother is away.
He is as hapless a dad as he is efficient as a killer, buying her a purple bicycle, even though she can’t ride a bike and purple hasn’t been her favourite colour since she was, you know, like, eight years old.
I’m not sure which scenes bored me more — the father-daughter bonding, the incontinent killing sprees, or McG’s cackhanded attempts to leaven the whole sorry spectacle with occasional stabs at comedy. The always- watchable Costner gives it his very best shot, but his weapons are wasted here.