The Fix, 2026.
Directed by Guy Moshe.
Starring Liam Neeson, Zachary Levi, Quincy Isaiah, Wes Chatham, Jake Choi, Augusto Aguilera, Annet Mahendru, Navid Negahban, Elnaaz Norouzi, Grant Harvey, Lara Wolf, Titus Welliver, Oliver Trevena.
SYNOPSIS:
Disillusioned by the end of the war in Afghanistan, a group of disgraced, war torn ex-CIA operators set out to Tehran to take down a life changing score.
Something about co-writer/director Guy Moshe’s The Fix feels broken from the beginning, and not only because it stars Zachary Levi (in the interest of fairness in reviewing the movie for what it is, he is serviceable and the least of the problems here). Following an American military squad in Kabul in 2021, a relentlessly grim and violent war sequence unfolds that is not shy about showing opposition’s death in almost fetishistic, xenophobic, graphic detail (the double-edged sword is that the shootout skirmish is intensely shot and depicted). The same goes for the sight of a dead local woman who had been feeding the Americans intel, shown bloodied and completely naked across a bed. It is simply unpleasant for a movie that spends the rest of its runtime watching these characters in the present day, reconnecting for one last mission; a rogue job in Tehran involving a rescue and a heist with a life-changing score, complete with all sorts of goofy character dynamics, ridiculous twists, and outrageous action-forward scenarios.
To be blunt, we are talking about a movie (from a screenplay by Guy Moshe, Mark Bacci, and Ron Hutchinson) that contains one dynamic that is either one of two things: incompetently written to a stunning degree or a telegraphed setup for a betrayal, in which case it is still dumb considering a character isn’t catching on to the obvious. Even during its ostensibly fun moments, it can’t help but cut away to more of those nihilistic beats in which women are executed point-blank for no reason other than to stress, with no self-awareness, that they want this narrative taken seriously. And if the film is meant to be a scathing criticism of the treatment of women in Iran, there comes a point when using the camera to frame and capture that violence merely comes across as edgy rather than anything substantial. It’s also wrapped up in a story that, as mentioned, is increasingly preposterous.
After that mission in Kabul went FUBAR, leaving Tucker (Zachary Levi) no choice but to snipe and kill an asset, fearing that he would otherwise be tortured and spill secrets – alongside multiple injuries to the squad – everything about it came under scrutiny, headed up by Liam Neeson’s Larry. Clay’s (Quincy Isaiah) first mission, he admires what Tucker was willing to do for his country and his coldness in that quest, such as leaving behind the young boy of that dead asset. As such, he sticks his neck out for the leader amid the fallout that left the entire unit disgraced and abandoned by the U.S. government.
In the present day, Larry is showing symptoms of dementia, losing clarity on who is who, and is now going into unprompted ravings about a hefty sum of money he and a former teammate left behind in “Hotel Tehran”. Tucker’s investigation into this leads him to Paris, where a concerned mother has more details about the stash and is willing to share them if he can go there and get her social-media sensation activist-journalist daughter (Lara Wolf) and her friends out of danger. From there, Tucker recruits what’s left of his old military group (Wes Chatham, Jake Choi, among others), determined to navigate hostility and danger, pull off a rescue, then a heist, and then somehow escape. As mentioned up front, escaping is always harder than entering enemy territory.
While part of this is following up on a lead to see if they can jog something in Larry’s memory, it is also ludicrous that anyone would recruit a team, promise them a large payout, and actually go through with a series of dangerous objectives on the hunch that someone losing their mind might have actually hidden away millions of dollars. Of course, some sign up for this anyway, as they want to experience the adrenaline of being in the field. Then there is another subplot in which Tucker is estranged from his wife and child, haunted by ghosts of his fieldwork past, while also hiring a woman (Elnaaz Norouzi) to file for a green card and be his wife for the duration of this mission so he can move freely throughout Tehran, a situation that results in a truly awkward, potentially romantic dynamic.
From reading all of this, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that this has the ungodly running time of nearly two and a half hours, full of itself, stuffed with ideas, characters, and dopey swerves, all within bleakness and borderline xenophobia that offset the playfulness of the heist and well-staged action that is here. It’s too ambitious for its own good; even the opening 30 minutes of warfare could have been trimmed to flashback snippets, which would arguably make for a much more restrained and focused film. The rest of The Fix is a swing that remains engaging in its scope, action, and photography, yet revels in a bit too much ugliness.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
