As a personal rule, I try to withhold judgment on reboot movies until I’ve seen the original and newest flick in close succession.
Unless it’s a movie that’s already near and dear to my heart!
When it comes to “The Killer” which debuted at the end of August on Peacock, I honestly didn’t know it was a remake or reboot until after I started looking up more facts for this week’s movie review.
That being said, since the original film came out in 1989, finding a streaming option for it after the fact was rather pointless.
Still, without knowing it’s a remake, the 2024 film seems to do a fairly good job at portraying an assassin’s own moral code and the conflicts that come with the job, too.
I also really enjoyed the cinematic views of Paris and assorted filming locations used despite how thin and rushed the storyline was overall.
The Killer is a 2024 American action thriller film directed by John Woo. It is a remake of Woo’s 1989 film of the same name.
The film stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Omar Sy, Sam Worthington, Diana Silvers, Eric Cantona, Tchéky Karyo, Grégory Montel, Hugo Diego Garcia, and Saïd Taghmaoui.
It’s rated R for strong/bloody violence and language and comes in at 126 minutes long.
Zee (Emmanuel) is a professional hit woman living in Paris who is regularly employed by Finn (Worthington), an Irishman working for crime lord Jules Gobert (Cantona), to eliminate Gobert’s rivals in the drug business.
Her violent lifestyle has left her with few things to enjoy, including keeping a goldfish, solving crossword puzzles, and the friendship of an old high-class tailor named Tessier (Karyo) - who provides her with disguises for her jobs.
In the underworld, she has become infamous as the Queen of the Dead.
Finn contracts Zee to kill the members of a drug gang from Marseille partying in a local nightclub.
Zee eliminates the gangsters, but a young American singer named Jenn Clark (Silvers), gets embroiled in the carnage and ends up going blind by hitting the back of her head in a fall.
Although obliged to kill all present at the club, Zee takes pity on Jenn and spares her.
Upon learning this, Finn sends her to the hospital where Jenn is being treated to finish the job.
Earlier in the day, a police inspector named Sey (Sy) and his partner Jax (Montel) try to arrest Jenn’s drug-dealing boyfriend “Coco” (Garcia).
But Coco escapes, injures Jax, and takes a hostage, forcing Sey to kill him.
At the time of his death, Coco was listening to a demo recording of one of Jenn’s songs, leading Sey onto her trail.
Posing as a vice-consul from the U.S. embassy, Zee gains access to Jenn’s hospital room and prepares to kill her.
Just then Sey enters to take Jenn’s statement about the assassination, but due to her traumatic shock, Jenn remembers little.
Zee aborts her assassination attempt, but Sey becomes suspicious of her.
From there, the assassin’s life only gets more complicated and she’s spending most of her time keeping Jenn safe while hiding out from her employers.
I think the film has some pretty good action sequences and shooting locations but overall, it’s just another “B-List” sort of film for mild entertainment.
