Wild Target (British 2010)
Director: Jonathan Lynn
With: Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint, Rupert Everett, Eileen Atkins, Martin Freeman
Slight, very silly, and very endearing. One in the “human side of paid assassins” genre, plus the small, character-driven English film.
Maynard (Nighy) is a middle-aged hit man hired to kill a young woman, Rose (Blunt). Completely against his instincts, and his code as an assassin, Maynard not only spares her, he falls in love with her. Who wouldn’t?
Rose is a nervy, slightly insane and adorable thief who has crossed a crime kingpin, Ferguson (Everett). Maynard not only doesn’t kill her, he provides her a safe house, ruled over by his mother (Atkins), herself a killer of skill and talent.
In their various escapes and lam-takings, Maynard and Rose pick up Tony (Grint), a callow layabout who demonstrates aptitude as a hit man.
Ferguson, really pissed off, hires Dixon (Freeman), the second-best hired killer, with a love-hate feeling for Maynard and a desire to knock him off.
The whole thing is goofy and improbable. The action is funny and violent, the love story a twisted romantic comedy, and the actors make more of the slight story than we could reasonably expect. Blunt and Nighy, an odd couple to be sure, are worth the price of admission, and the others are terrific, too.
Not Casablanca, but fun anyway.
B