Wesley (McAvoy) is a geeky Chicago accountant who's unhappy with his decent life. When a sudden gunfight erupts around him, he's rescued by a woman named Fox (Jolie) and he's introduced to Sloan (Freeman), head of the Fraternity, a thousand-year-old secret society of assassins who cleanse the world of undesirables. It turns out that Wesley's recently deceased father was a member, and that he has inherited his special skills. So after some gruelling training, his first job is to find his father's killer.

Russian filmmaker Bekmambetov's trademark style (see Night Watch) is a blast of fresh air in an American blockbuster. Sure, he overdoes everything, with whizzing camera work and editing, a crashingly dense sound mix and constant stunts and effects work. But it's done with a lightness of touch that Hollywood hacks can't dream of. And it's also made for an adult audience, never pandering to pre-teens, which allows for much more intrigue and subtext.

Not to say that the film feels even vaguely realistic. It doesn't, especially as these killers have super-human abilities to control their pulses, bend bullets and defy gravity with their cars. That said, they're also recognisable, and McAvoy's casting is a stroke of genius: he begins in the kind of role we expect, as an underachieving everyman. And he perfectly plays Wesley's transformation into a mega-assassin as much more than mere wish-fulfilment.

Meanwhile everyone around him is impossibly cool, from Jolie's omnipresent vixen to Freeman's silky-sinister boss. Stamp is terrific in a smaller role, as are Common, Warren and Bakhtadze as Wesley's three teachers. This sequence is far more than the usual training montage; not only do their personalities emerge, but we feel every brutal ordeal they submit him to.

And by grounding it in real characters, Bekmambetov frees himself to indulge in seriously gonzo car chases, hilariously convoluted mythology (the Loom of Fate!), cod philosophy ("Kill one, maybe save a thousand"), exploding rats and a spectacular train derailment. Like The Matrix, it's not nearly as complex as it pretends to be, but it's visually stunning and relentlessly entertaining from start to finish.

themes, strong violence, language, sexuality

12.Jun.08