3 Days to Kill

Sometimes you spent weeks and months looking forward to and eagerly anticipating a certain movie.  This was not the case with 3 Days to Kill.  I have a hard time imagining anyone spent any significant amount of mental energy looking forward to this film’s release.  There was almost no marketing for the film prior to release and the snippets that were out there made it look like a very generic.

Kevin Costner serves as the film’s main protagonist.  He’s someone who’s been a driving force in some really significant films, but his presence has been somewhat distant recently.  It seems like for the past several years you heard more about him in relation to his company’s oil skimmers during the BP spill than you have regarding films.  The movies he has been in have for the most part not been very significant and he has had secondary roles.  With that being said, he is a great actor, and he shouldn’t be discounted.  Directed by McG, 3 Days to Kill also stars Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, and Connie Nielsen.

3 Days to Kill centers on Costner’s character – a veteran CIA field agent.  He has a fairly typical backstory of being very good at what he does but at great personal cost.  His wife and daughter have lived their lives without him and he misses the relationship he used to have with them but doesn’t know how to make things right.  When unexpected circumstances hit, he decides it is time to finally meet his family face to face again.  However, these same unexpected circumstances also force him back into the field for one last assignment.

Surprisingly, the 3 Days to Kill turned out pretty good.  To begin with, an action film needs to have great action and the film is full of very exciting action scenes.  Everything from the shootouts to car chases are very well thought out and very well executed.  The family issues Costner deals with easily had the most downward potential (as such issues always do in action films), but this aspect actually turned out to be fairly heart-warming.

At times, this mix of components feels somewhat uneasy, but the bridge between action and working on family relationships is usually paved with witty comedy.  The focus on action is pretty good, but even though the other elements definitely aren’t best in class they still all come together in a very entertaining way.