IMdB says there were two movies with this title in 2015? Huh. In this one, Sam Rockwell plays a former CIA operative and independent hitman, who now kills anyone who tries to hire him to kill someone. Also, he wears a red clown nose and dances around a bit when he does it? I guess he found Patch Adams deeply significant at some point. Or was touched by a McDonald's commercial.
He meets Anna Kendrick while in New Orleans. She's coming off an ugly break-up, they hit it off, she thinks he's joking about killing people until she watches him kill a guy who tries to hire him. Then there's tension between whether the killing people thing is enough to outweigh him being an apparently attractive mix of creepy, awkward, and silly. So kind of like Grosse Pointe Blank, if Martin and Debbie hadn't met until after Martin grew tired of being a killer. And if Debbie decided killing people was super-fun and kind of awesome. Kendrick's behavior in the movie kind of makes me wonder if she is a psychopath, 'cause I'm not sure she's capable of considering anyone else's feelings. Just kind of does stuff that ends badly for her friends or other people, and shrugs and giggles apologetically. Like, "Sorry, out of my hands that this killer guy is stuffing you in the closet of your own home because you're pointing out salient points about him being deranged. Nothing I can do."
Mixed in through all this is Tim Roth playing Rockwell's former partner, hunting him down because. . . he didn't take the break-up well near as I can tell. He keeps alternating between acting like he's gonna shoot him or arrest him, but he has a $5 million bounty himself, so turning him in doesn't seem like the best plan. There's also James Ransone as this putz in some crime family that tries to maneuver Rockwell into killing his brother, who is acting boss. That guy is, either fortunately or unfortunately, really damn annoying. You don't mind seeing him die, but it takes the entire movie.
It's a little bizarre. Ransone's brother has severe anger issues, and at one points beats one of his men with an old rotary phone, then confirms it still functions. His threapist(?) tries to karate fight Rockwell at one point, then grabs a grenade for some reason. Rockwell and Kendrick engage in a type of foreplay that involves throwing kitchen knives back and forth. I thought you were supposed to save that stuff for the later years, once things were getting stale.
It's funny in spots. The RZA plays Steve, the one competent henchman, who can't quite decide if he should work for these morons or not, but is at least smart enough to ask the question. As far as movies where Rockwell plays an unhinged killer go, I'll stick with Seven Psychopaths, but this one has its charms. That one was more about friendship and dangers of obsession, and this is a rom-com.
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