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Aug 20, 2021 · “The Protégé” is slick and glib and constantly on the go from city to city and genre to genre. It’s also a mismatched buddy comedy and a doomed romance. But what it’s about—seeking revenge for the revenge killing of a 30-year-old assassination—isn’t as intriguing as who it’s about, and that’s Maggie Q’s character.
Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and trained in the family business, Anna (Maggie Q) is the world's most skilled contract killer.
- (112)
- Martin Campbell
- R
- Michael Keaton
Aug 20, 2021 · Pros. +. ️ Very entertaining banter, especially from Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson. +. ️ Brutal, grounded fight choreography that makes an impact. Cons. - ️ The plot loses the thread as both a revenge story and a mystery, making the back half feel strangely unmotivated. - ️ Michael Keaton feels miscast as Maggie Q's romantic interest.
- leighmonson@outlook.com
- Leigh Monson
- Like gold turned to lead.
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- The Protege
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- Verdict
By Siddhant Adlakha
Posted: Aug 19, 2021 11:00 pm
The Protégé hits theaters on Aug. 20.
On paper, The Protégé has all the makings of a slick, sexy action thriller with a strong emotional core. In practice, it’s a black hole that consumes any hint of tension, chemistry, and excitement, which is downright shocking when you consider who’s involved and how familiar this territory is for them. Director Martin Campbell helmed Casino Royale. Maggie Q starred in Nikita. Samuel L. Jackson played Shaft. Michael Keaton is Michael Keaton. The Protégé, however, feels like it was assembled from filmed rehearsals on set, with everyone simply going through the motions and reserving their talents for the next proper take. The result is an anti-reel — an inverse-calling card for every participant, all of whom have proven time and time again that they could pull this off in their sleep. You have to try extra hard to mess up a sure thing that’s as sure as this.
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This stiltedness permeates the rest of the film, especially when Keaton’s character enters the fray. Rembrandt carries himself suavely when he first meets Anna — who moonlights as an antique book salesman — but when their dialogue turns to flirtation, something feels deeply off. Both Q and Keaton speak at a rapid-fire pace, but neither one seems to consider or react to the other’s advances — at least, not in the shots that made it to the screen. As the film goes on, their attempts to balance lust and animosity get lost in a haphazard edit that can only seem to conceive of human behaviour as what’s being said in words, rather than why those words are being said, or what conversations are being had by people’s body language and lingering glances. There’s probably a much more passionate version of their scenes together somewhere on the cutting room floor.
After a while, it begins to feel like a VeggieTales reenactment of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, with anything remotely risqué ripped out in favour of something absurdly conservative. These are characters who simultaneously want to kill and screw each other, played by actors who are more than capable of radiating appeal — all they need to do is show up — but they seem to want to be on camera less than the cast of Movie 43. It’s like watching gold be turned to lead. The closest thing The Protégé has to sex scenes is a fight sequence that briefly threatens to become sensual, and a shot of two naked characters hidden under a blanket after they’ve done the deed off-screen. The movie was rated R, though clearly not for its sexuality.
It begins to feel like a VeggieTales reenactment of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
“
You would think the violence makes up for the film’s lack of, well, anything of note, but even the action feels limp, and there isn’t much of it that stands out beyond the first few scenes. It has one single sequence, involving Keaton fighting his way through a crowded market, where the punches have “oomph” and the environment feels like it’s part of the story — also known as the baseline for action in a visual medium. But for the most part, every bit of fight choreography feels designed for minimum impact. It’s edited to feel sluggish, and the camera rarely, if ever, moves in a way that captures momentum. The action’s closest aesthetic cousin is the recently released Beckett, though that film’s fights were intentionally sloppy since it featured an everyman on the run, not trained martial artists.
As for the story, it could have taken place anywhere in the world without changing much. That’s a problem too, and not just because its spaces are mostly nondescript hallways that do little to enhance the action. Anna hasn’t been back to Vietnam since she was 12. It’s both her homeland and a place that holds painful memories, but when she first gets off the plane, the film captures this monumentally important moment… via a wide shot of Anna placing her luggage in the trunk of a cab. In The Protégé, plot logistics are so much more important than emotions that they consume any semblance of story. One short glance out the window later, and Anna is back to tracking down Person A for Reason B in Location C, none of which are given any emotional context until the film decides to retroactively explain them nearly an hour into its 100-minute runtime. This is still somehow preferable to how and when the film dramatizes Anna’s trauma (hint: it doesn’t factor into the story at all, despite her returning home).
What else is there to say? It’s a nothing film, whose action ought to be exciting and whose dialogue and interpersonal dynamics ought to be rife with emotional and/or sexual tension. But the words are just words, and the fights are less interesting than watching paint dry. It’s really no fun at all.
The Protégé sucks the fun and excitement out of its action-thriller premise, and it turns its gorgeous, incredible actors into charisma black holes. Everyone involved not only deserves better, but has done better versions of what they do here. The right ingredients, assembled in disastrous order.
- Siddhant Adlakha
Aug 20, 2021 · The Protégé, a cat-and-mouse assassin thriller starring Michael Keaton and Maggie Q, delivers exciting action sequences but ultimately reveals an empty center.
- 30 min
Despite a few fine actors who wring out decent performances, The Protégé is a convoluted and ridiculous late-summer action-thriller throwaway with too many characters, loose ends and nine lives.
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The Protégé is a 2021 American action thriller film directed by Martin Campbell, written by Richard Wenk, and starring Maggie Q, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide, David Rintoul, Ori Pfeffer, Ray Fearon, Caroline Loncq, and Robert Patrick.
