IN THE SPOTLIGHT
‘The Protege’ is a sleek and derivative diversion
Maggie Q should really be the star of “The Protege.” She’s in virtually every scene, whether covered in blood or couture. But top billing for this thriller goes to Michael Keaton, who saunters in by the 22-minute mark. What does a girl have to do?
Q fans will just probably be grateful that she manages to make it to the last scene of the film alive, given all the shooting, explosions, knives and torture in “The Protege,” a sleek derivative diversion.
She plays Anna, an orphan adopted by a very wealthy veteran assassin — played by Samuel L. Jackson — and is molded into an elite assassin herself. In her spare time, she runs a rare book shop in London, as most elite assassins do.
The filmmakers are very versed in cool, chic professional-led violence. It is written by Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer” film franchise) and directed by Martin Campbell
(“Casino Royale”).
Q has some lines that slay, like when she’s bleeding badly and told she doesn’t look so good. “Oh, I don’t know. Nothing an apple martini and a liter of AB+ won’t fix.” Or, in a testy showdown with a rival: “Let’s hope this doesn’t get messy. These are my favorite shoes.”
At the film’s center is Q but there is a hollowness there. She can rappel down a staircase using a fire hose, endure waterboarding and use a dinner tray as an assault weapon, but there’s little insight in her inner life or emotions and her backstory appears too late. Alone on screen she is marooned in her own film, radiating simply steely watchfulness.
Keaton adds a delightfully unstable, wry humor and electricity — “I could put two in the back of your head and go make a sandwich,” he boasts to Anna — and Jackson is Jackson, spewing truth bombs and jokes, threatening to steal the film away from both of them.
All this climaxes in a series of clumsy attempts to end the movie, finally doing so with a clunky final scene that’s either bad film editing or writing. It’s like something that Keaton’s character says earlier to Anna: “I’m not gonna lie to you: There’s not much chance this ends well for you.” He’s right.
“The Protege,” a Lionsgate release, is rated R for strong and bloody violence, language, some sexual references and brief nudity. Running time: 109 minutes.