STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
A high security vault is broken in to and a scroll containing highly sensitive information is stolen, setting some highly powerful people on edge. Ex CIA agent Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) now works as a security adviser for hire under an assumed identity, but returns home with his teenage daughter Amy (Liana Liberato) to find his cover up completely stripped away. Desperate to figure out what's going on, he ends up being targeted for death by mysterious, shady people and learns of a series of other deaths that are linked to a much wider conspiracy involving a giant company.
It would seem even a hot, trendy star of the moment like Aaron Eckhart is not above appearing in the odd straight to DVD offering, or, it would seem a limited release (though I'm not sure where it came out.) The sort of promising, potential laden thriller that would have got a much wider cinema release and lots more publicity in more certain times, The Expatriate sets it's sights a bit higher than being merely the sum of it's parts, a complex thriller that requires your full attention, even if at times it feels so over complicated it can't help but lose it.
With a big name American star in the lead, and almost certainly an American production, the film takes place, for the most part, in Belgium , with Eckhart even getting to display a pleasing grasp of the French vernacular at various points, but as such is mostly a European lensed production and is assuredly dreary and bleak looking through out. While the plot feels as though it has to slow down here and there so you can take it all in, thankfully the action never feels so sluggish, with plenty of neat stunts and chase sequences at various points.
While it may not be a superior film, The Expatriate is certainly a superior small release offering, with a reliably dynamic lead and a decent pace, even if at times it all gets so much to take in it goes over your head. ***
A high security vault is broken in to and a scroll containing highly sensitive information is stolen, setting some highly powerful people on edge. Ex CIA agent Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) now works as a security adviser for hire under an assumed identity, but returns home with his teenage daughter Amy (Liana Liberato) to find his cover up completely stripped away. Desperate to figure out what's going on, he ends up being targeted for death by mysterious, shady people and learns of a series of other deaths that are linked to a much wider conspiracy involving a giant company.
It would seem even a hot, trendy star of the moment like Aaron Eckhart is not above appearing in the odd straight to DVD offering, or, it would seem a limited release (though I'm not sure where it came out.) The sort of promising, potential laden thriller that would have got a much wider cinema release and lots more publicity in more certain times, The Expatriate sets it's sights a bit higher than being merely the sum of it's parts, a complex thriller that requires your full attention, even if at times it feels so over complicated it can't help but lose it.
With a big name American star in the lead, and almost certainly an American production, the film takes place, for the most part, in Belgium , with Eckhart even getting to display a pleasing grasp of the French vernacular at various points, but as such is mostly a European lensed production and is assuredly dreary and bleak looking through out. While the plot feels as though it has to slow down here and there so you can take it all in, thankfully the action never feels so sluggish, with plenty of neat stunts and chase sequences at various points.
While it may not be a superior film, The Expatriate is certainly a superior small release offering, with a reliably dynamic lead and a decent pace, even if at times it all gets so much to take in it goes over your head. ***