3 DAYS TO KILL Review

After watching all the movie previews for 3 Days to Kill, I was expecting something of an action spy thriller about a dad who is a CIA operative.  The side story was that our operative is a sick man and he's tempted back into one last job by the lure of a cure for his illness.

The opening act shows us that Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) as an aging yet deadly CIA operative, who is pretty sharp with the gun.  But he also has other issues, like trying to reconnect with his daughter after being an absentee father out on operations.

But he's sick and the CIA doesn't need him any more.

But there's one more job he needs do to, but he doesn't want to.  He wants to spend time with his family since he was given a prognosis of only three months to live.

But he's offered an experimental drug by Vivi (Amber Heard) to cure him (maybe) for one last mission.

And that's how the story gets under way.

But...

What we get instead, is a story where Ethan works on this one last job, while spending an unusually annoying amount of time developing the father/daughter story, as he spends time reconnecting with his daughter, Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld).

But throughout the film, there are moments of levity that can be construed as funny, even if it's out of character for a spy thriller.

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I'm not sure what Luc Besson was aiming for with this story he wrote, and to be honest, this film missed the mark for capitalizing on what director McG can do with an action film and if I had to pick a category, I'd toss 3 Days to Kill into a family film with some CIA action here and there.


The time spent with Ethan and his inner journey with his family and himself seem pretty lengthy for an action film, and it feels like it takes up more than half the film.

The action-packed trailers are pretty much misleading. If you're an action junkie, this isn't the movie for you.  Sure, there are moments, but most of them are in the trailers. And Amber Heard isn't really seen that much, though of the ten or fifteen minutes of screen time she does have, fans won't be disappointed.

I like Costner these days in his action roles, but like McG's talents being wasted, I think this role was a confusing mess for him.

But that's a perspective from an action junkie that needs some story peppered in with his action. Even my wife, who likes story with her movies, was not to enthralled with it.

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Had I seen 3 Days to Kill in the theaters, I would have been failry aggravated at the money I spent.  The construction of the story is such that at the ninety-minute mark, you feel like you've been watching it for three hours.

In fact, I'm almost sorry I paid the rental fee to watch it.

I'd give this movie a popcorn 5 for the confusion this story created in contrast to my expectations I had coming into this film.

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