Film recapMoviesKillers: Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher are victims of a bungled execution – film on TV recap
The characters are blank and the stars appear to exist in their own separate vacuums in this, the third worst film of 2010, which is showing on Channel 5 at 10pm on Sunday Read Jason Solomons' review of Killers
Read more recaps from Stuart Heritage
"How weird is this going to get?" – Jen
Katherine Heigl has struck upon a novel strategy to promote her new TV show State of Affairs – she's basically apologising for her entire career. "I love romantic comedies," she told Marie Claire last month, "but maybe I hit it a little too hard. I couldn't say no. I stopped challenging myself. It became a bit by rote and, as a creative person, that can wear you down."
Now, it could be that Heigl was referring to The Ugly Truth, named by Total Film the 11th-worst rom com of all time. Or it could be that she was referring to One for the Money, for which she received a Razzie nomination. Or maybe it was The Big Wedding, which Time called one of the worst films of 2013. However, I like to think that she was referring to Killers, because that's the only film she's made opposite Ashton Kutcher; a man who seems similarly unable to get within a million miles of a romantic comedy without turning it to a pile of unwatchable crap. In Killers, the unstoppable force of Heigl meets the immovable object of Kutcher, and the results are staggeringly unpretty. That's got to be worth a watch, surely.
"Let's just say that I work for the blah blah blah, and they gave me a license to blah" – Spencer
Remember Mr & Mrs Smith? Remember the electric sexual chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? And remember Knight and Day? Remember how it didn't have the chemistry of Mr & Mrs Smith, but it was still vaguely entertaining at times and at least had some fairly decent production values? Well, do your best to forget both of those because, even though its premise falls somewhere between the two, Killers bungles the execution at every turn.
Let's start with the storyline. On paper, it sounds like it might have some promise. Heigl meets Kutcher, but doesn't realise that he's a spy. They fall in love and he gives up spying, and then it's revealed that everyone in their neighbourhood is also a spy, and they all want Kutcher dead. But the film is such a mess. Even the action scenes – which make up more or less the entire second half of the film – are completely weightless. They're not funny enough to pass as comedy, or convincing enough to pass as action. It's not often that I have to deliberately stop myself from checking Twitter during a car-chase shootout scene, but that's what happened during Killers.
"Wait, women don't like 'grabby'? I'm gonna have to change my whole MO" – Spencer
And now to the leads. There is not a scrap of chemistry between Kutcher and Heigl. Not an ounce. Not an atom. They're both going through all the recognisable rom-com motions, but it's as if they're doing it independently of each other, trapped in their own vacuums. It doesn't help that Kutcher's distracted monotone steamrollers the life out of any material he's given, nor that the most emotive line dealt to Heigl is "It's so organised", during a conversation about office furniture.
They're both such vast blank spaces that the film has to make them describe each other, just so we can see what the appeal is. Heigl calls Kutcher "perfection", even though he constantly sounds like he just woke up; and he calls her "smart" – specifically citing her knowledge of French wartime history – when in reality she's just a collection of arbitrary tics and neuroses.
There's a scene near the end that the whole film should hinge upon. It's the big emotional separation scene. It should make you root for Heigl and Kutcher. However, the only feeling you experience while watching it is confusion. You can't tell whether they're supposed to be sad or bored. You, however, will be both.
Notes
Of course, it doesn't help that this film was named after that band who had that one song that time. It may as well have been called Semisonic.
Every bad film I've watched lately seems to have featured Casey Wilson in a thankless bit part. Either Casey Wilson should get a better agent or I should check IMDb more thoroughly before I watch stuff.
Also, weirdest Usher cameo ever. Even including Muppets Most Wanted.
However, the lighting in this film is quite good. It's quite a well-lit film. That counts as praise, right?
And it's quite admirable how little effort it puts into disguising its product placement. "Those Volvos are amazing" indeed.
How bad was this film? Metacritic ranked it as the third worst film of the year, after Vampires Suck and The Last Airbender, and Kutcher won a Razzie for it. So, quite bad.
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