Friday 17 June 2011

Wild Target

Earlier today tired from the morning exercise and first project work I watch a great fun piece after seeing that the cast included the great Bill Nighy and called Wild Target. As wicked black comedies go this is the wickedest and blackest.

The film brings together four great characters and I begin with Emily Blunt as a self confident amoral young woman kleptomaniac who persuades a restorer at the national gallery to create a copy of a Rembrandt which is being sold abroad because the Gallery has been unable to raise the fund to keep the picture in the UK. She then arranges to sell copy to a Billionaire collector on the basis he gets the original and the overseas buyer the copy. In order to achieve the deal she takes both in a double sided picture carrying case and allows the original to be inspected and authenticated by a an expert. She then raises the asking price giving the opportunity to pretend to take the picture with her as the opportunity to reverse sides and take out the fake. It is not until she has left the hotel suite that the switch is recognised that the Billionaire hires the best known hit man to kill the girl in revenge.

They man he hires has been trained from birth by his father and mother to become the most respected assassin. He follows on from his father and grandfather having been given a gun for his first birthday present and had a mobile above his cot of toy guns. He visits his mother, played by the excellent Eileen Atkins in a home because of her increasing frailty who gives for his forthcoming birthday a bound volume of press cuttings about his most famous hits. She chides him over the fact that he has remained unmarried and mentions it was at his same age his father married her. Perhaps it with this thought in mind that he is not as clinical as previously when stalking Emily and preparing an education, following her to a hotel where she makes passionate love which he observes and found a vacant position in the building opposite. He decides not to kill her when the opportunity next arises. His mother is incandescent with rage when she learns what happened fearing the family reputation has been sullied for ever! She advises that he must immediately redeem himself by killing the girl and giving the fee back in recompense. He follows her to a multi-storey car park and is about to execute when he sees another attempting to do so, so he kills him and then enters into a gun fight with a second assassin. Just when Bill and he girl are about to be killed by the second man, a young man who ahs been using the car park as a home from home, grabs the gun of the other first killer and shoot the other man wounding him. The three beat a quick retreat in the mini car. Nighy claims to be a detective on a stake out in the car park and agrees to protect the girl for a fee of £30000 a week. The young man is played by Rupert Grint the friend of Harry Potter is the series.

Bill takes them to a West End Hotel where he and the girl are in constant disagreement about everything. They do not realise that the Billionaire is in a suite nearby, cursing the fact that he has lost one bodyguard and that the other is injured. He has resorted to hiring the next best hitman in the world who is something of a sadist. He has an equally obnoxious assistant but they have in common admiration for the Master who they have never met.

Still at loggerheads Nighy and Blunt are at breakfast in the hotel dining room while Rupert is enjoying bath. Blunt has left her boots out to be cleaned and these are spotted by the bumbling bodyguard who enters the suite and bathroom but shoots the ear off the man somehow and then rushes out with their belonging collection the duo who are the reception desk settling the bill. There is then the usual car chase through London before the billionaire and assistant crash and end up in traction in hospital. The new hitman and assistant visit and vow to carry out the commission.
Nighy takes the girl and the adopted young man who he has offered to train to the family home in the midst of the countryside. The house is spotless with everything covered in plastic which leads to one quip that he will have no problem using a condom! Eventually the girl succumbs to Bill’s understated charm when he tenderly massages her feet among his many skills. Just when it looks as if all is going well for the trio, Eileen Atkins arrives to express her opposition to developments. Then Emily discovers the truth about Bill which she imparts to Rupert before departing as quickly as she can,

Meanwhile to two new hired assassins have been go through a list of possible forgers which leads them to the actual forger and to Emily on her return to London. They make their way with the girl back to the hideout where Bill is teaching Rupert to shoot, He suddenly appears to get three bulls eyes which he denies as they have been achieved by one of the gunmen with Emily in two. Out of admiration for the Master, the young turk offers to let Rupert live if Bill kills Emily and allows the young man to kill him. Bill’s mother has returned home and from the first floor shoots the assistant about to kill the three. The young turk then seizes the original gun given to Bill by his father and attempts to shoot him only for the gun go explode and the man killed by the recoil. They then bury the two in the garden. The film ends three years later when a young boy appears to have buried something in the grounds while Bill and Emil are eating out proudly watching. Young Rupert arrives to say he is missing the household cat which evidently has been killed and buried by the offspring obviously following in the family tradition. The film is great fun.

No comments:

Post a Comment