Father/daughter relationships are often used in storytelling to build emotional depth into characters, especially in movies. That relationship can be the focal point of the story or simply one aspect of a larger narrative. For The Protege, everything hangs on the importance of that relationship. With shades of Leon: the Professional, there’s a high body count, lots of action, and a bit of emotional stability from the core relationship of a father and daughter, but while enjoyable, it doesn’t quite have that level of depth.
When you decide to watch a movie about a fictional modern day assassin, you don’t necessarily expect the movie to open with a Blade Runner-esque scene of neon-lit rainy darkness in an Asian street about thirty years prior, but that’s exactly where The Protege opens, using the aftermath of violence to bring together Samuel L. Jackson’s Moody and Maggie Q.’s Anna. The film stays gorgeous throughout, with wonderful establishing shots and an accompanying soundtrack that accentuates without overshadowing, as five minutes later, it jumps forward thirty years to modern day, to present day Anna and Moody, who are people who are exceptionally good at locating those who are difficult to find. They just typically happen to then kill those people, often for very large sums of money.
The film also stars Michael Keaton, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of physical stunts and acting from specifically his portrayal of Michael Rembrandt - Keaton turns seventy years old in just a few days, but the former Batman star held his own in several very well choreographed fight scenes. Maggie Q. also had her share of action, with a few death-defying feats before facing off against Keaton in a few tense cat and mouse combats. The effects that went into showing off damage caused by firearms in the various scenes looked smooth and quite practical, with one somewhat humorous moment as Keaton shields himself from a shotgun blast by opening the door of a fridge, and for his trouble spends the remainder of the scene with the remnants of a gallon of milk dripping down his face. The stunt work was excellent, and the makeup for various burns, bullet wounds, and other injuries was quite convincing.
Early in the course of the movie, Anna loses Moody, the man who rescued her from Vietnam as a child, coaxing her from a bloodstained room with several men who he surmises she had killed, though why is initially unknown. It’s never explained why he was in Vietnam, but she later remarks that in removing her from Vietnam, he did not save her life - instead, he recognized her potential and gave her a life. Anna embarks on a mission to find out who ordered the hit on her second father, bringing her into close contact with Keaton’s Rembrandt, a man who for all intents and purposes is in nearly the same line of work she is, except he is being kept on retainer as more of a security consultant where she operates as an independent contractor. The two have fairly good chemistry, though Anna’s character is far more no nonsense than that of Rembrandt’s.
The only complaints I had with the film were relatively minor, one being the way Hollywood typically portrays firearms in film, but the other being a bit more important to the narrative. The film made sense as a complete package, but there were minor details which felt like they either were not well explained or required the viewer to be paying a lot of attention. Moody mentions to Anna that he would be returning to Vietnam for something in particular, and that he’d like her to go with him, but she refuses, stating she’d left there once and had no reason to return, so when she winds up there in pursuit of his killers, it seems very strange for her to ride headlong through a biker gang made up of a variety of ethnicities that winds up being an ally at least of Moody’s, if not also of hers, swiftly coming to her aid in her quest for vengeance. Similarly, the death of Anna’s family, portrayed in a flashback near the end of the film, comes at the hands of the men who lay dead around the cabinet that she had chosen to hide in where Moody finds her at the beginning of the film, but again, there is no explanation as to Moody’s appearance there, nor is there much explanation for the killing of her parents and siblings.
I quickly realized that the only characters that were really important to this story were that of Anna, Moody, Rembrandt, and a man who is a coworker and sort of competitor of Rembrandt’s, but even those roles are mostly unexplored, aside from the depictions of Moody’s love of music and technology and Anna’s apparent appreciation of rare books. The side characters exist to show what Moody and Anna have in England where they live, but most aren’t present for more than a scene or two. In some cases, the characters’ names aren’t even given. In fact, most of the setting of the movie is similarly open ended, allowing for the story but not really being a necessary part of it. The clear focus is the parental relationship between Anna and Moody and the somewhat friendly if violent relationship between Anna and Rembrandt. With that in mind, this story of one assassin’s quest for vengeance was quite good, but ultimately, still a sad yet beautiful story.
RORSCHACH RATING: 4 of 5
Mental Health Moment: When Anna finally begins to process the death of Moody, it is a very controlled moment of weakness for her: She has just escaped from captivity and brutal torture at the hands of those she suspects are connected to his murderers, and the strain of the previous amount of time has finally begun to catch up with her. As she sits with Billy Boy, the leader of the biker gang, he comments that he knows Moody saved her life by bringing her out of Vietnam. She responds that he didn’t save her life, he recognized her potential and gave her a new life. This concept of redemption is one that I believe is fairly important. To some extent, everyone has potential, whether that’s the potential to do something great, to change Humankind’s experience for the better, or simply love another person by being present when they need you, everyone has potential. If you can be that person for someone else, the Moody to their Anna, recognizing that they have more to offer, you could be providing them with a new life, or at least a new reason to keep living.
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Victims and Villains is written (and produced) by Josh "Captain Nostalgia" Burkey and others, and edited by Cam Smith. Music by Mallory Johnson and others. The Protege is property of Lionsgate. We do not own nor claim any rights.
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