Guns For Hire, 2015.
Directed by Donna Robinson & Katherine Brooks.
Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ben Mendelsohn, Ever Carradine, Michele Hicks, Orlando Jones, Tony Shalhoub, Raffaello Degruttola and Sarah Shahi.
SYNOPSIS:
A tough loner who works as a part-time assassin takes on a job to kill a suicidal on the run from her crooked boss.
Beatle (Michele Hicks – Mulholland Drive) is a troubled loner who works a day job as a tow truck driver and as an assassin in her spare time. Beatle doesn’t engage with any other human beings apart from her psychiatrist Dr. Vanderark (Orlando Jones – Evolution) and the stripper/hooker she hires for liasons once a week, but when the suicidal Athena (Ever Carradine – Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back) comes into her life and asks Beatle to kill her in order to escape her crooked boss Kyle Sullivan (Ben Mendelsohn – The Dark Knight Rises) and his brutal hitman Bruce (Jeffrey Dean Morgan – Watchmen), Beatle begins to fall for her. However, things take a strange turn when Detective Holt (Raffaello Degruttola – Quantum of Solace) thinks he has pieced together what is going on.
On the surface it looks like Guns For Hire has a lot going for it as there are lots of familiar faces starring in a film that promises a lot more than it actually delivers. The opening scenes of Beatle being questioned by Detective Holt and the flashbacks that set up the story are, at best, intriguing and Michele Hicks gives enough of a performance to make us want to find out a bit more about Beatle and what has made her the way she is, but all too soon the plot turns to mush with little to no direction for the rest of the running time, and never has 80 minutes felt like such a long and drawn out process.
The main problem with Guns For Hire is that is just isn’t as quirky or interesting as the characters or plot it tries to portray. The story isn’t overly complex and is reminiscent of dozens of other hitman-based crime capers that have been made over the years, and the performances are pleasant enough with everybody doing their best to deliver their lines with the right amount of humour and drama. But somewhere along the way it loses the spark that the filmmakers are trying to capture and it all feels a little flat. The energy levels shoot up a bit whenever Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Ben Mendelsohn are on the screen – which isn’t very much – but the film relies heavily on the two female leads to carry it and, through no fault of their own, it just doesn’t work as either a comedy or a thriller. The dialogue is bland, the direction drab and uninteresting, and the final twist in the tale is painfully dumb and ineffective, making you wish that nobody had bothered and you watched something else instead.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Chris Ward
Originally published January 11, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
