The Professional

For some reason this thriller is fairly involving and you want to see what happens - but it isn't a must watch.

Sam Worthington is the assassin turned protector and he has a rather inexpressive face. Bland and emotionless. Don't think he conveyed a junkie convincingly. His accent is hard to understand.

Odeya Rush reminds of a younger Mila Kunis - quite appealing.

The actor Allen Leech who plays the villain acted as the chauffeur Tom from Downton Abbey. He isn't convincing - can't help thinking of him as the help of the bad guy rather than the evil bad guy.

The chase via car and train etc through a rather bleak wintry Europe is unnecessarily unattractive..

The movie is not boring and it's decent for a thriller. However, I feel like there's something missing. Maybe I'm too old but a while ago, film makers could add that magic ingredient that makes a movie not seem cheap.

'THE HUNTER'S PRAYER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The new action thriller starring Sam Worthington as a hit-man who ends up helping the young woman that he was supposed to kill. It was directed by Jonathan Mostow (who's also helmed such other hit action flicks as 'U571', 'BREAKDOWN', 'TERMINATOR 3' and 'SURROGATES'), and it was written by Paul Leyden and Oren Moverman (the duo also co-wrote 'SURROGATES', 'TERMINATOR 3' and 'TERMINATOR SALVATION', also starring Worthington). The script is based on the 2004 novel 'For the Dogs', by Kevin Wignall. It costars Odeya Rush, Allen Leech and Amy Landecker. The film has received mixed (to negative) reviews from critics, and it was also only released on VOD and in limited indie theaters at the Box Office. I found it to be pretty entertaining.

Lucas (Worthington) is a loner assassin with a serious drug addiction problem. He's hired to kill a young woman, named Ella (Rush), but when he needs to pull the trigger, he can't do it. Instead Lucas ends up reluctantly helping the girl, by defending her from the very same people that hired him to kill her. By doing so, he also makes himself a target of his former employers. When Ella realizes her parents were killed by Lucas's former employer, Richard Addison (Leech), she attempts to hire Lucas to kill Addison for revenge.

I'd say the film is similar in quality to Mostow's other movies, I really like 'TERMINATOR 3' though. It's a fun action film for the most part, nothing too memorable (or special), but it is entertaining. I think Worthington makes an awesome action hero too, and I'd really like to see him make more movies like this. I can't overly recommend it, but it is a decent action flick.

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As a movie that was not categorized as summer blockbuster Hollywood movie, we got we came for. The movie did not have large special effects, but the action sequence including the car chase and the hand to hand combat were actually pretty exciting. I loved and enjoyed how the sound effects were put to good use. The guns blazing sound and those car chases noise (including some sudden shocking effects like car being hit and so on) were the best parts of the movie.

The story seemed to be pretty standard for this kind of movie. It had the element of anti-hero in it, where our protagonist was actually an assassin/hit-man and also had a "father/daughter" relationship, despite they were not really father and daughter. I understand that this movie was adapted from a novel titled For the Dogs written by Kevin Wignall which was considered very good by a lot of critics. This was usually the case for a novel to be adapted into a movie. However, it would seem that the movie adaptation was not garnering the same views by lots of critics.

As an action thriller movie, it was actually good in terms of the actions. However, for me personally, I think the actions could have been given a bit more. There were times when it was in the more dramatic moments, the pace would become slow (which was actually in contradiction to the novel which according to critic was a fast-paced page-turner). Nevertheless, due to the good actions sequence, I was pretty pleased with the movie. Just a reminder though that the killings were pretty brutal, so best not to be seen by children. I could not say that this was a bad movie, but neither could I say that this is a very good movie. Overall it was pretty standard.

On the characterization, I think Odeya Rush was pretty good playing damsel in distress (My wife and I kept on thinking that she looked like a younger Mila Kunis). But this time Sam Worthington (apart from the actions part) was not too memorable. Even worse was Allen Leech who seemed out of place as the main villain. I think Jonathan Mostow as the director was not able to bring out the best from the actors and even got one rather illogical scene before the climax. It was a pity though since he actually got quite a good portfolio of commercially successful movies such as U-571, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines or The Surrogates.

So if you are a fan of Sam Worthington and wanted to see him as a lead character in an action thriller movie, then this could make you happy. Now if you want to see a not-so-fast paced action movie and just enough of action sequences through out the movie, with "father/daughter" relationship, then this probably would be a good choice. But if you are looking for a full blown action movie, or even a very meaningful action thriller movie, then it would be better if you look elsewhere.

For my complete review, pls have a look at michaelnontonmulu.blogspot.co.id

It is his film. Scene by scene. Cliche by cliche. An action film like many others, mixing the vulnerable girl, hunted by bad guy for a sin of her father, a lonely sentimental killer protecting her, fights, violence, drugs. The worse part is the dialogue. The best - the effort to be more than a simplistic action-thriller, with not so bad end. A film about honor and fatherhood who escapes to the temptation to be a simple sketch but proposing few scenes of old fashion . With a decent result.