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Killers (2010)

Rating: 1/10

US Certificate: PG-13

Jennifer “Jen” Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) is on vacation with her parents (Tom Selleck and Catherine O’Hara) in France after a boyfriend breakup. Getting in to an elevator, she meets a shirtless hunk of man named Spencer (Ashton Kutcher), and after one date, he’s so smitten with her that he decides to give up his job as a C.I.A. killer guy and settle down. Fast forward to three years later, and Spencer’s wedded suburban existence gets shot to heck—kinda literally—when his old crew tries to rope him back in, he learns there’s a sizable bounty on his head, AND he has to face the wrath of his newly informed wife.

Now, I have given low scores to movies in the past, and I’ve even given surprisingly high ratings to movies that have been panned by virtually every critic imaginable—I even liked All About Steve. That being said, there is nothing in Killers with any ounce of redeeming value. It isn’t funny, it isn’t romantic, it isn’t an interesting thriller, and any star power or casting benefits it may have had from Kutcher, Heigl, Selleck, and the usually spot-on O’Hara is negated by the film’s utter lack of entertainment value and consistency.

Actually, it starts off OK—at first, Kutcher and Heigl seem to be a cute pair, and even though it’s all a little predictable, there’s that familiar feeling that even though it’s all going to go by the book, it may be a pleasant and fluffy waste of time. Oh no. It’s not. It’s a slow lead up to the big find out session where Jen learns that Spence was and is an agent, and once her suburban dream is blown, it’s even more downhill than it already was. Films like these, with their heightened action and unbelievable situations, are mainly entertaining BECAUSE of their lack of reality, but here, plots are too stupidly far-fetched even for that small amount of enjoyment. When everyone starts gunning for Spencer, we’re just supposed to fall in line and nod that, “Ha ha! All his co-workers and neighbors are trying to kill him!” Whatever. And really, despite a few early glimmers of hope, Kutcher and Heigl have zilcho chemistry, and though both are competent performers in the right roles, these are obviously not those roles, and it feels like they want out of this monstrous debacle as much as we do. Edited poorly, mired in cheap dialogue, and lackluster in any category it can be placed in, Killers should be avoided at all costs.

It's Got: A lame twist, Horrible editing, No redeeming qualities

It Needs: Not to have wasted Catherine O’Hara, Everything to be better

Summary

Quite possibly one of the worst movies of the year thus far, Killers is an example of what happens when all the wrong things combine into one dreadful movie.