Film review: Wild Target

Directed by: Jonathan Lynn

Starring: Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint

You wait ages for a professional assassin action comedy, and then two come along at once. First there was Red, which spent tons of money wasting an A-list cast (Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman) on a lame plot. Now comes Wild Target, which spent presumably less money (it’s British) wasting a jolly decent cast (Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Martin Freeman – no relation to Morgan), on the same lame plot.

That plot is this: Bill Nighy is Victor, a top-notch hitman from a long family line of paid killers. His latest assignment is to dispatch Rose (Emily Blunt), a charming kleptomaniac who has upset snooty villain Ferguson (a woefully underused Rupert Everett) by flogging him a fake Rembrandt. But sweet Rose wins his heart and he can’t pull the trigger – much to the despair of his murderous mummy who fears the family losing its ruthless reputation. So Ferguson hires another killer (Martin Freeman) to do away with both Victor and Rose, who go on the run after embroiling an innocent passer-by (Rupert Grint) in the deadly proceedings.

Of course, it’s preposterous. And that’s fine, as long as it sort of hangs together and gets the audience to suspend their disbelief. The problem is that Wild Target doesn’t quite manage it. It jars with some clunking scenes and dialogue, shoehorned in to propel the plot awkwardly forward.

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Another problem here, and with the genre, is that action comedies are funny and murder, well, isn’t. In fact, murder is one of the least funny things, and murderers are, by and large, pretty unlikeable people. So an action comedy that tries to make murder funny and murderers likeable without the whole thing falling apart needs a deft touch and smart approach for its black humor to work, neither of which Wild Target enjoys.

But there are compensations: some witty lines, the irony of toffs who care about fine wines and table arrangements killing for a living, lively and laconic

performances from Blunt and Nighy respectively and a dash of the British charm that on a good day gives us a Full Monty or a Four Weddings and on a not so good day gives some decent actors a nice payday and the audience a smatter of laughs.

Debbie Stowe