If 2020 has given us anything, it’s been the opportunity to diversify our motion picture passions. Confined to the company of our own council, we have turned to worlds of pure imagination and escapism, trapped as they are inside our screens. In the midst of a global pandemic, the magic of the silver screen has simply saved our sanity. Something to catch my eye during a daily Netflix perusal was ‘Hard Kill’. When you combine Bruce Willis with the action film genre, you know you’re in for a treat. While watching ‘Hard Kill’, it’s certainly true I bore witness to a movie masterclass, I just wasn’t expecting a masterclass of mediocrity.
Hard Kill is an action-thriller directed by Matt Eskandari, in which a team of hired mercenaries battle to prevent a new groundbreaking technology from causing mass destruction. Bruce Willis plays Donovan, whose daughter, Eva, developed ‘Project 725’. She mistakenly approaches an extremist known as ‘The Pardoner’ who promises they can work together to save the world. When his true purpose of global genocide is revealed, ‘The Pardoner’ takes Eva hostage and attempts to get Donovan to disclose the activation code for ‘Project 725’. Donovan then hires a team of mercenaries to both retrieve the technology and rescue his daughter. These plot points culminate in a shootout in an abandoned warehouse.
As plots go, it would be difficult to find less originality than Hard Kill. The film is an ode to the generic, a limerick to the lazy, and a poem to the predictable. It’s almost impressive how seemingly little effort was put into the writing process. From the hired mercenaries with the flimsy personal backstories, through the entertainingly vague revolutionary new technology, all the way to abandoned warehouse setting, every element of the story seems to have been lifted straight from the action film playbook. Hard Kill somehow manages to look like an attempt to recreate every single shooter of early 2000s video games, even down to the grey-brown colouring that fails to excite the imagination.
A film this disappointing wouldn’t be complete without decisions made only to confound the conscious mind. If the simple objective for both sides is to eliminate the other, why stop shooting when the two sides are in the same room? The protagonists come together to talk terms in a flimsy attempt to add some emotional suspense, when a single shot could end this torture for everyone. Speaking of which, it doesn’t help when everyone suffers from Storm Trooper syndrome – given those on both sides are meant to be the best shooters in the business, why suddenly lose all accuracy when it matters?
And then of course there’s ‘The Pardoner’. Akin to other characters like Marvel’s ‘The Punisher’, perhaps ‘The Pardoner’ was meant to create an air of testosterone-fuelled intimidation, when in actuality the character withers in comparison to his own name when we actually meet our techno-terrorist. Think more stroppy hipster than violently sophisticated mastermind – why anyone would willingly follow him baffles the mind. He’s no Hans Gruber, that’s for sure.
This leads perfectly to the crux of the issue – the Bruce Willis factor. A little digging reveals that Hard Kill is not the first time Bruce Willis has worked with Matt Eskandari; in the space of only two years Eskandari has directed three films that star Bruce Willis. Survive The Night details how a family is held hostage by a group of criminals, while Trauma Centre is the story of a woman placed in the protection of a police lieutenant when two corrupt cops are after her. Adding in Hard Kill, does any of this sound familiar? Bruce Willis? Hostages? Kidnapped daughter? Character placed in police protection? These films are nothing more than a shameless attempt at recreating the Die Hard franchise, just without any perceivable talent. All we need is an airport takeover and a race around a city solving puzzles to complete this sacrilegious set of bargain bin nonsense.
This leaves one final question in this cauldron of confusion – why did Bruce Willis agree to this? Surely one film would be enough before hitting abort, right? It’s fair to say these films wouldn’t diminish Bruce Willis; greatness, but surely professional pride would prevent him from agreeing to this torrid triumvirate. Perhaps this is simply an easy pay cheque, which is no bad thing given how 2020 turned out.
The answer is, in fact, an irrelevance. All that matters is these films exist, and Bruce Willis has to live with that. Hard Kill manages to contain almost every element that constitutes an enjoyable action film, yet somehow fails to deliver something that could even be considered passable. The plot is rushed, the setting is tedious and the characters just ooze tired stereotypes. But all the bad acting, listless direction and under developed story pale in comparison to this film’s ultimate, unforgivable crime. Do you know what happens when you take on a Hard Kill? Your opponent will have to Die Hard.
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