Agente Asher

There's too little action here for me to label it as an action movie. The "suspense" is mostly trying to figure out what the story is about, so I won't give any spoilers. Suffice to say that it's very slow paced, but I enjoyed watching it once only, considering how hard it is for me to find good movies these days.

I mainly watched it because of Framke Janssen who I liked in Taken, and Ron Perlman who I remembered from The Startup. It was good seeing both of them. Fortunately I kept my expectations low, so it worked out. I would have liked more action but the story was okay.

Aging Hitman Asher (Ron Perlman) usually works alone, but agrees to a team hit that goes wrong and this marks him for elimination. We never find out who the new group is, but Asher's handler Avi (Richard Dreyfuss) makes a deal with them and to terminate Asher. Now Asher has to protect his love interest Sophie (Framke Jansssen) because that new group is also targeting her. Oh, oh!

Well, he's not Jason Bourne, Agent 47,or John Wick, but he's good and new on the scene and I am sure we will see more Asher movies.

This was more than pretty good. Very enjoyable and we see that Asher has his finger on every pulse and can be trusted to perform. He did have a blackout early on when he was about to off someone in an apartment, but Sophie opened her door as he lay on the floor. And yes, he did come back to finish that muffed job. So now you know how he met Sophie and it is here he ends up breaking one of his rules to not get involved with anyone. (You love it when a hitman breaks his rules, right?) So true.

Notables: Jacqueline Bisset as Dora, Sophie's mother who has dementia; Peter Facinelli as Uzi, a hitman that Asher trained back in the day and is now taking jobs away from Asher; Marta Milans as Marina, who helps Asher with a hit from time to time; Blake Periman as Hannah, Uzi's wife; Ned Eisenberg as Abram, the dry cleaner who gives Asher the envelope for the next hit.

The acting all around is first rate and I am sure we will see more Asher movies unless a noise in the last scene that Asher heard laying in bed next to Sophie was not a deer in the woods. Hmmmmmm..... HA! (7/10)

Violence; Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Humor: No. Language: One F-bomb by Sophie. Rating: B

Story wise this movie has some potential with the hitman for the Jewish Maffia angle... but it's just poorly executed. I love Ron Perlman, but this was a very stiff performance, the rest of the cast was also 'mweh' at best... directing not strong, script not strong. Not saying it's a bad movie, it's okay for a boring sunday evening when you've got nothing else to see.

I enjoy Ron Perlmans acting, and everyone else did a pretty solid job as well. Predictable in some parts but I enjoyed it for the most part.

Are you ever really out???

6.2

Something like a Cassavetes' Killing of a Chinese bookie with the hip coolness of a Jean-pierre melville noir.