The Protégé (2021) Lionsgate/Action-Thriller RT: 109 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, language, some sexual references, nudity) Director: Martin Campbell Screenplay: Richard Wenk Music: Rupert Parkes Cinematography: David Tattersall Release date: August 20, 2021 (US) Cast: Michael Keaton, Maggie Q, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Patrick, Patrick Malahide, Ray Fearon, Ori Pfeffer, Taj Atwal, Florin Piersic Jr., Tudor Chirila, Velizar Binev. Box Office: $8.7M (US)
Rating: ***
How about this for a dream team, Nikita, Nick Fury and Batman? Sounds pretty cool, no? That’s what you get with The Protege, a totally slamming action flick directed by Martin Campbell whose filmography includes two James Bond movies (GoldenEye and Casino Royale), two Zorro adventures, the underrated conspiracy thriller Edge of Darkness and the campy superhero piece Green Lantern. He’s more than qualified to direct this tale of globetrotting assassins taking out targets as they confront the past.
Maggie Q (Nikita) stars as Anna, a highly skilled contract killer who runs a rare bookstore in London. It’s both a front and a passion. This is a woman who oozes class from every pore. She has exquisite taste in everything- food, clothes and literature. She’s also lethal with every kind of weapon you can imagine. She owes her life to her ailing mentor Moody (Jackson, The Avengers) who spirited her out of Vietnam after a massacre from which she emerged as the sole survivor. Her past is about to come back to haunt her.
It starts when Moody asks her to find a fellow named Lucas Hayes. Not long after, people who helped Anna turn up dead. An attempt is made on her life as well. To find out who’s responsible, she has to go back to Da Nang. The person she’s looking for is connected to a contract Moody carried out 30 years earlier. Her search brings her into contact with Rembrandt (Keaton, Batman), a ruthless fixer for a billionaire criminal (Malahide, The Long Kiss Goodnight) who imagines himself a global humanitarian. She first meets Rembrandt when he poses as a customer at her shop looking for a rare Audubon book. They flirt for a bit. They have a neat back-and-forth, quoting Edgar Allan Poe as they look deep into each other’s eyes. The chemistry continues as they try to kill each other time and time again.
As has become the trend as of late, the plot of The Protege is somewhat convoluted. To its credit, it makes more sense than Jackson’s previous outing The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. There’s a lot less shouting too. Still, it’s loud and chaotic. It has the usual genre amenities- shoot-outs, fights, stunts, chases, explosions and bloody kill scenes. A biker gang led by Robert Patrick (T2) shows up from time to time to lend Anna a hand. They prove especially helpful when she wishes to question a heavily guarded person of importance with valuable information.
In any event, the action scenes are very well done. An early sequence in Bucharest sets the stage for what’s to come in how it establishes Anna as a bad ass not to be underestimated. There’s also a great bit where she uses a fire hose to make a quick trip from the upper floor of a sterile office building to the lobby. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s just the right length to allow her a safe feet-on-the-floor landing. The Protege bucks a trend that’s driven me nuts since the final five minutes of the first Lethal Weapon. The well-choreographed fights are edited in a way that allows the viewer to see and understand what’s going on. You see the hits, punches and kicks land. You see the damage they inflict. I’m especially impressed with the fights between Maggie Q and Keaton. In a way, they’re kind of flirtatious. It’s obvious they’re attracted to each other despite fate making them enemies. At one point, a combat session ends with them in bed together for a different kind of session. It’s touches like this that make The Protege so much fun.
Maggie Q is a total bad ass, no two ways about it. I’ve known it for a long time. She’s shown her mettle in Mission: Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard and the Divergent series. She’s good in The Protege, but the screenplay lets her down by not developing her character beyond a surface level. We eventually find out what happened to her in Da Nang as a child and it’s horrible. What we don’t see is her training with Moody. How did she transform into the human killing machine she is now? At the very least, a montage would have sufficed. Despite this hiccup, she does solid work. Keaton has not slowed down with age. At 70, he’s still more than capable of going toe-to-toe with his younger co-star. He brings the right amounts of charm and menace to his villainous character. He still has that mischievous twinkle in his eye that can become threatening in an instant.
Jackson, on the other hand, plays it like he always does. He brings his trademark foul-mouthed swagger to his character. It’s always fun to see him in action, but his character feels slightly out of place in The Protege. It’s almost like he’s in a different movie. Why don’t we just call it comic relief and leave it at that?
There’s a surprise plot twist in The Protege that I suspect most will see coming. I saw it right away. My friend did not. Either way, it’s really not all that surprising. You’ll know it when you see it. Okay, so The Protege is flawed. So what? It’s a damn entertaining late-summer actioner. Fast-paced and action-packed, it’s better than most of the typical August studio output. I enjoyed it very much. It’s a solid matinee movie.
