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Directed By
Timur Bekmambetov
Written By:
Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan, J.G. Jones, Mark Millar
Cast:
James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common, Angelina Jolie, Kristen Hager, Marc Warren, David O'Hara, Konstantin Khabensky, Lorna Scott, Chris Pratt, Dato Bakhtadze, Dato Bakhtadze
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Wanted (2008)
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Movie Review by Thom
July 4th, 2008
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Wanted? Gotted!
Favorite Movie Quote: "I'm sorry."
As the pendulum swings among the genders and races the oppressed become the oppressors, the oppressors the oppressed. Ten or twenty years ago, the main character would have been a woman, and the story would've been about female empowerment. Interesting that it's gotten to the point where you can actually have a film about male empowerment, males having been slowly neutered to the point where standing up for your own self is seen as oppressing others.
In Wanted our listless beaten soul is Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). His father walked out on him when he was seven days old, his best friend is banging his live-in girlfriend, and his fat, loser, stapler-obsessed boss is a four-letter word that rhymes with "runt". In a sequence indicative of his life, Wesley's best bud drops his wallet while nailing Wes' woman on his break and Wesley winds up paying for his bud's energy drinks and condoms, we assume to continue banging Wesley's skank of a girlfriend. He knows it, and takes it up the brown-eye better than his girlfriend takes it from his bud.
Enter Fox (Angelina Jolie), all-business bad-ass assassin nymph, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), and the rest of the Fraternity, an association of world-event-steering assassins. Wesley has the gift they have, and they need him to follow in his father's footsteps and become one of them.
Wanted earns its R-rating by not pussing out on the violence, be it complicated or casual, something I appreciated. It also bats around a fairly complicated difference of philosophy, without getting didactic, about killing, assassination, and the notion that the difference is what the deed serves. Wanted seems to posit that killing for a purpose greater than one's self is one thing while killing for self-serving reasons is another and that, while following that higher power is important, to do so without question is rubbish.
For its action, Wanted is hit and miss. The misses are a culmination of budget limitations in which you are subjected to a series of cuts (edits) that are so frenetic that it might induce a seizure. The hits are homeruns of gunfights and improbable car stunts that I've never seen before, or at least never done so well. Add in a little story twist with an unexpected ending and you have a recipe for a movie that exceeded my expectations for a C+ type picture.
Wanted? Gotted!
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 | Xavier
Jul 4, 2008 3:47 PM
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| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Emasculation is almost a taboo subject these days. Ten years ago it was FIGHT CLUB, now, WANTED. The Male species is becoming cornered, and I don't think we are entirely comfortable with that. What do you think the next ten years will produce? |
 | The Alpha Craig
Jul 7, 2008 3:42 PM
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| The thing I find funniest about it is that their version of male empowerment is becoming a killer (in the comic it was a super-villain and not an assassin but the point remains - Comprehensive Craig.) With Fight Club, "Tyler" was at least helping set free others from their dull existences (think Raymond K. Essal.) I have to agree that men have been on a slow and steady emasculation trip and talking openly about how wrong it is has been deemed inappropriate. Nice guys finishing last are trying to stand up to it, but I don't think becoming the jerk/bad guy is the best way to fight it though. |
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Jul 4, 2008 7:52 PM