Our second Original Netflix movie review, we were intrigued with this film. It's always splashed as trending in my wall that eventually I gave in and watched it.
The story starts with a retired hitman, Michael Green (played by Johnny Knoxville) getting killed as he gets a blow job. Bummer right? It seems that a group of hitmen, is being hired to kill as much retiring hitmen.
In other films similar to the premise, the company (that hires hitmen), kills these Retired and Extremely Dangerous (RED - a Bruce Willis film) for the knowledge they possess and to keep these secret, they have to kill them. In Polar, all hitmen are expecting their pension once they reach 50 years old. In Mads Mikkelsen's character Duncan Vizla, he gets to be paid a whopping 8 Million US Dollars. A big cashflow blow to the company, unless Duncan gets killed three days before he reaches 50. A new reason why to kill retiring hitmen and it's kinda fresh.
Now the premise is set, the story has the group of hitmen, a motly crew of stupid bungling assassins who questions briefly, then kills their subjects in the pursuit of Duncan Vizla. The killings are so graphic and so consistent that we got desensitized to the idea of killing midway into the film. Upon research, this film was based on a graphic novel, so they were just maybe faithful to the novel that they had to be, so graphic.
If blood spatters turns you off, overkill turns you off then don't watch this film. If you do like the gory kills, then by all means watch this. Aside from the killing? Sex scenes are graphic as well. So watch this after your kids are asleep, then turn down the volume when women gets on the moaning stuff. If you like Mads Mikkelsen in the buff, then this movie is for you as well.
True to the graphic novel, all characters were stupid and goofy except for the leads, Mikkelsen and Vanessa Hudgens. The rest were taken from B movie characters. Worst of the lot is the villain, Mr. Blut, the owner of the company. Worse as his character was, thanks to him, we got to see Mads Mikkelsen show off some of his deathly skills. If he killed Duncan early on, as he had the opportunity to do so, we won't have a two hour film. Glad that he let him live long enough to escape and bring on revenge as Duncan's motivation in the end.
The movie was predictable almost 90% of the time and it never dawned on us that a twist was in the offing. The hints were there to begin with and never never in my mind that would create that needed twist to save the film from being forgettable.
Watch this for Mads Mikkelsen and a little bit of Vanessa Hudgens (who was great here even with short exposure yet heavy part in the film). And watch this for bloodshed and sex in it too.
