And as she travels further on her journey of revenge, we also understand that she’ll eventually confront her own traumatic backstory, which we keep glimpsing in brief flashes. For years, Anna has refused to return to Vietnam, and the glittering, modern cityscape she’s confronted with seems like a far cry from the Da Nang she once knew. The script, by Richard Wenk ( The Equalizer 2, The Expendables 2, Jack Reacher 2) is basically an action-movie mad lib, but Campbell manages to invest it with some atmosphere. Among the people she’s looking for: the fast-talking Rembrandt (Michael Keaton), her mysterious quarry’s murderous chief henchman, and with whom she establishes a supposedly quick-witted, cat-and-mouse rapport.
She hooks up with some old friends who run a biker gang and revisits the places of her past. Suspecting that the cause of the hit was Moody’s researching the whereabouts of the child of a man he killed many years ago, Anna heads back to Vietnam to track down the culprits, who may or may not be associated with an international arms dealer and power broker based in Da Nang.
THE PROTEGE REVIEW MOVIE
One day, Moody, who already appears to be terminally ill with some kind of unnamed movie ailment that keeps him coughing, is slaughtered by a group of gunmen. Now, they run their business out of London, using an antiquarian bookstore (one of Anna’s passions) as a front. Jackson), the man who saved her from a massacre in Vietnam in the early 1990s back when she was a child.
Anna (Maggie Q) is an expert international tracker and assassin who works with fellow killer Moody Dutton (Samuel L. So why does the movie so often fall so flat? The story, while thoroughly generic, seems to have enough emotional juice to keep us interested. And The Protégé feels right for his talents: It’s a revenge movie with tons of hand-to-hand combat and gunplay, filled with the kind of stunt-driven, cleanly directed mayhem that has been his forte for most of his career. Martin Campbell made three of the great tentpole action films of the past 30 years - GoldenEye, Casino Royale, and The Mask of Zorro - along with several other pretty good ones, so any new release from him should be worth celebrating. Photo: Jichici Raul/Lionsgate/Jichici Raul/Lionsgate
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