Wild Target [2010]

A no nonsense aging hitman goes out on a job – falls in love with his target – and causes everything to go all higgley piggley!


Billy Nighy is hilarious. Emily Blunt is fun. Rupert Grint is surprisingly great. Martin Freeman is pitch-perfect. Rupert Everett is serviceable. The script is less than great.


Actually – it’s more like the first part of the script is quite good – fun, engaging, interesting, fast paced – then it just loses energy and thus the characters deflate and become less interesting. Action films and comedies are tricky like that – you want your characters to be funny and entertaining throughout the film – but it takes a lot to mix that in when they are running around – so it turns out that they are only funny and engaging when they are doing stuff – when they stop doing stuff – there’s not much for the audience to grasp on to – because they essentially become different characters.


The main characters go and hide out for the last big chunk of the film – which stopped them from moving toward their goals – actually muddying their goals so it was unclear as to what you want to see each character doing – thus making them all kinds of boring. The revelation that Emily Blunt’s character had did not feel remotely in line with her character because of this lag in plot. I guess a calm in the action would cause a character to reflect and become self-aware – but there was no discernable action or revelation announced between the characters to justify her character’s change in behavior.


Rupert Grint was believable and fun – he seemed to understand that his gawky behavior as Ron Weasley, the affable boy wizard usually the butt of jokes, in the Harry Potter films – was not the same delivery needed for his uncomfortable behavior in this film. It may be comparing two different brands of the exact same thing – but I think it takes an apt hand to play it differently enough – as there’s a lot of one-note actors out there who play the same type of character the same way every time and are quite successful at it.


Bill Nighy was great – serious, socially awkward, absolutely deadpan – you could tell he had some fun in this role. I really couldn’t get enough of him in this role. I just wish there was more meat to the role for him. Sure, as the main character he did a lot – but when the action stopped – he did everything he could with the remainder of the role – but there wasn’t much left.


Would I recommend this film? Sure – it was fun enough – but I wouldn’t ask anyone to go out of their way for it. If you really wanted to watch something else – watch something else – but when you get to WILD TARGET – savor the fun beginning through to the end. 3 out of 5


directed by Jonathan Lynn