Killshot

Killshot is a lot like a hundred movies we've seen: predictable plot, predictable ending, likeable stars that don't do anything different or startling. However, this particular movie has one, or really two, things going for it. The villains are played by real actors.

A couple (played by Diane Lane and Thomas Jane) -- who are having their own difficulties in their relationship -- are relocated by the federal Witness Protection Program when she witnesses a crime. However, the couple is stalked when the bad guy figures out where they live.

Sounds like a simple plot. However, almost half the movie is interestingly about the villains, two guys who are so dissimilar that they think they'll work well together. Armand "The Blackbird" Degas (Mickey Rourke) is the brains behind the outfit, but he's older and less likely to pull the trigger. Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is in the habit of pulling the trigger first, then figuring out what he's doing there. And he's lost more than one partner due to their poor planning. He thinks Blackbird will solve that problem.

The movie is an intriguing look at these two guys who think they know what they're doing, and how they fail in almost every way possible. The relationship between these two is easily comparable to the relationship of our protagonists, Lane and Jane: they have their problems communicating, there are definitely trust issues, and so on. It almost seems redundant to say that Mickey Rourke has hit the top of his game, always menacing but amazingly vulnerable even as a bad guy. And Joseph Gordon Levitt keeps getting better and better. He's so much fun to watch.

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