Chief of Station - Verità a tutti i costi

A big fan of Aaron Earhart and Olga Kurylenko but unfortunately neither one of these actors can save this low budget B film that is so poorly written that it quickly falls apart into a silly out of date silly script that's so predictable table and dull that not even the action scenes can make it feel entertaining. And Olga comes into the picture to save the day almost at the end which is too late and too little.

The directing is decent considering the script is terrible and if you remove Aaron and Olga this would be a terrible low budget B film.

Go in with super low expectations and ready for laughable moments where terrible accents make you cringe and the action fight scenes look like something from the 1970s completely outdated where guys have slug fests rather than shooting each other and all that was missing is Charles Bronson.

Looking forward to next action film from Aaron E and anything Okga K stars is - maybe with higher budget and better script

3 stars for 2 main stars and some great shots of Budapest.

Director Jesse V Johnson is better known for his collaboration with martial arts actor Scott Adkins in movies such as The Debt Collector.

In Chief of Station he goes for espionage but comes up short both in action and story.

Ben Malloy (Aaron Eckhart) is the CIA station chief whose world falls apart after his wife's death.

However Ben is drawn back into the shadowy world, after his former adversaries are killed. He learns that his son is in danger and discovers that he cannot trust anyone, even his former allies.

From very much the early scenes, you can guess who will turn against Ben Malloy. There is nothing here in terms of a good story.

That leaves the action scenes to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately Eckhart is no Adkins. He is perfunctory with the action scenes but the script is not good enough for him to stretch his acting chops.

I am a big Aaron Eckhart fan and HE was THE reason I started watching this, but what a disappointment it turned out to be...

The bad: from the get go I notice this is a cheaply produced movie, with uneventful photography, a way too overbearing soundscore and above all WAY too many below average supporting actors.

More bad: what's really annoying (and disappointing) though is the fact that this is meant to be a serious and tough crime movie, but the action is so silly that it flexed my laughing muscles.

There simply is NO suspense, NO thrill, NO originality, it's a nothing burger. Aaron Eckhart has made some solid movies lately, but this is defnitely not one of them!

...

And I only said that out of respect. Sometimes the film is so bad that it becomes good in a sort of back to front logic .... this here does not

It is thoroughly bad through and through the only saving grace and this has been mentioned in other comments is the fact that it moves around beautiful cities... Everything is spelt out for you as if anything more complicated than a comix For a six-year-old would make your brain misfire.

The fight scenes are so bad we wonder why anybody included them here; they make absolutely no sense they must have been choreographed by some canines at the pound Who could not find a home and had to been given a task to keep them occupied. It is an absolute shocker

And yet and yet if you can fully disengage your mind for an hour and a half and you really have nothing else to do and I mean absolutely nothing else to do you might get through it

A solid three for Budapest and other locations which might or might not be what they claim to be.

I had recently sat through, and thoroughly enjoyed, the 2023 movie "The Bricklayer", and thus I opted to sit down and watch this 2024 action thriller titled "Chief of Station", as it also had Aaron Eckhart in the leading role.

Sure, I had never heard about this movie prior to sitting down and watching it, so I didn't really know what I was in for here, aside from it being an action thriller. So writer George Mahaffey and director Jesse V. Johnson essentially had every opportunity to entertain me.

The storyline was watchable, sure, but at the same time it was also somewhat bland and forgettable. Writer George Mahaffey didn't exactly conjure up something grand or thrilling here. "Chief of Station" didn't manage to stand out from so many other action thrillers like it, and thus it was a bit of a disappointment. Now, don't jump to conclusions here, because I am not saying that it was a bad movie, not at all, it definitely had some good parts. But overall it was essentially just a generic action thriller.

This wasn't exactly the highlight of Aaron Eckhart's career, nor was he particular distinguishable in the movie. It was as if he was running a bit on auto-pilot. There were a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, joining Aaron Eckhart on the screen, with the likes of Olga Kurylenko, Nick Moran, James Faulkner and Daniel Bernhardt.

There is a fair amount of action in the movie, and that definitely helps to keep the movie afloat, and thus director Jesse V. Johnson didn't fully deliver a dud.

Watchable for what it was, but don't get your hopes up for "Chief of Station", as it was a rather bland and generic action thriller.

My rating of "Chief of Station" lands on a five out of ten stars.