Action at her finest!
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Written by: Richard Wenk
Cast: Maggie Q, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton
Swift shot: If only these types of assassins really existed. Reminiscent of Remo Williams, Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson are morally gray operatives who take out scumbags that excel at disappearing and evading justice. [Epstein, cough, Epstein] And Michael Keaton comes along as a mostly believable nemesis with questionable intentions. With exceptional action and fighting that lethally delights, The Protégé stands out as a nice little action flick you should check out.
Maggie Q plays Anna, a Vietnamese woman who was saved as a small child by her protector and mentor, Moody (Jackson) from a life of pain and misery. While Moody trained her to be an assassin, she displayed a certain fire when he first meets her that helps him understand she is suited to the job.
She has been his protégé for thirty years, but he’s getting too old for this shit. It’s only a matter of time for him to retire and pass along the keys, or in this case, shark tooth flash drive to Anna.
Before he goes into the ground though, he has one more job for Anna to pull off. He wants to find someone from Vietnam, a place that Anna has sworn to never return to ever again. See, some bad shit went down there, and I can’t blame her for avoiding her past.
As Anna works her network of sources to locate the target, some bad shit goes down at home too. And she is separated from Moody and soon finds herself on her own. All her normal connections are out of commission, and the only clues to what happened require her to return to Da Nang.
Không tốt – not good.
Without options though, return, she does. And thankfully the film really picks up from there, as it does have some really slow pacing at times. Anna uses every trick she ever learned to infiltrate the bad guy’s nest and locate her target. But eventually she runs into something she hasn’t encountered yet . . . her equal.
Keaton does a decent job as the grizzled henchman, Mike Rembrandt. It’s not much of a spoiler to tell you that he works for the head bad guy, and Anna has to deal with him several times. Each encounter produces unique challenges.
Once everything is revealed, there’s an irony in Anna’s return and even how the mission kicked off in the first place which I won’t reveal here.
The action is quick and fun. Blink and you’ll miss some of the kills. So, don’t blink!
There is a nice little cameo spot for Robert Patrick to tear up some scenery too. And Ray Fearon does a decent job as another of the high-level baddies for Anna to dispatch.
Jackson is his normal self. The guy just doesn’t have any range. And Maggie Q is a stunner. There’s at least one scene where she’ll take your breath away. Come to think of it, there’s at least two.
I also caught a few Easter Eggs to Batman that made me chuckle. I am not familiar with any of Maggie Q’s other work personally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t some little nods to her past stuff too that you might find.
Overall, this is just a clever action thriller that has enough twists to keep it engaging.
Be advised though, it is brutal! if you want a tame action flick, this ain’t it!
I can tell you at the end of our screening, the audience actually clapped. I was a bit shocked, as this is “just an action movie.” But where and when it shines, it does indeed deserve some applause.
