Get the latest gossip
A Guide to the Blue-Collar Killing-Machine Movies of January
From bee movies to B movies, here’s what you need to know about whether to watch The Beekeeper, The Bricklayer, or The Painter.
The most nostalgic of these January offerings is this thriller from Renny Harlin, who in his ’90s heyday was responsible for hits like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and Deep Blue Sea, but who these days seems to only be able to get work abroad or on independently financed features that go the contemporary equivalent of straight to video. In the novel the film’s based on, Steve is a former FBI agent who’s meant to be a Jack Reacher type, but the adaptation was clearly tweaked to shoot in Greece for financing and/or tax purposes, so he’s now instead a spy who’s at ease pretending to be a moneyed expat, choices that somewhat erode his aura of working-class solidity. Firmly in the bottom tier of this grouping is this action movie from Kimani Ray Smith about another former CIA agent, Peter, played by Charlie Weber, who quits after an incident in which his wife and colleague Elena (Rryla McIntosh) is shot on the job, surviving while losing their baby.
Or read this on VULTURE