The Misfits: Politically Dubious Actioner Offers Big Agenda, Little Escapism
By Liam Lacey
Rating: C-
“Euro-pudding” was the phrase first used to describe 1980s-era, mercenary co-productions that involved international casts and generic action plots. The Misfits, which is directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Cutthroat Island) is more like Arab-pudding, an action-comedy set in a Mideast location, financed by UAE production company, and with a couple of name actors.
The main star is former James Bond Pierce Brosnan, as an aging debonaire luxury hotel thief, Richard Pace, who is persuaded to join with a group of younger criminal Robin Hoods for an altruistic heist. Their goal is to break into a prison in Abu Dhabi to steal a load of gold stashed there by a for-profit prison builder named Schultz (Tim Roth) who’s in league with a terrorist organization.
The multi-ethnic younger gang includes Ringo (Nick Cannon) — who also narrates — a specialist in adopting wacky disguises and accents. There’s an Arabic logistics money guy, Prince (Rami Jaber), a bumbling explosives expert, Wick (Mike Angelo), and a kung fu expert assassin Violet (Jamie Chung), who deadpans, “I don’t date men. I kill them.” Pulling the strings here is Pace’s estranged social-justice-loving daughter Hope (Hermione Cornfield), who plans to use the loot to help refugees.
Brosnan, with lips pursed and one ironic eyebrow perpetually raised, signals that we should not take any of this needlessly elaborate but easily achieved caper seriously. Not much here surprises — not the grumpy camel rides, tepid desert chases in luxury sports cars, Brosnan’s aging seducer persona or Cannon’s cringe-worthy impersonations.
But there are a couple of memorable scenes, showing opposite ends of the wealth scale. On one side is the army of glass towers of Abu Dhabi, and in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in Abu Dhabi, with its flashing jewelry and horseshoe bars and a leggy model who slinks by with her leashed cheetah.
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At the other end of the social spectrum, there’s a scene where The Misfits contaminate the prisoners’ food as a diversion. The prisoners (I’m curious, are any of them political prisoners?) from their tiered cells around a central circle, begin retching and spewing en masse, creating a sort of Bellagio fountain of their previous meals.
Beyond the glitter and the gross-outs, The Misfits is dubiously entangled in the politics of the country where it was financed and shot. The script bluntly identifies the Islamist political reform movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, as promoters of international terrorism, which is a big stretch. (Here’s a 2019 New York Times explanatory piece about the Muslim Brotherhood).
Last month, Al-Jazeera reported that Qatar, which shares the Persian Gulf and a fractious recent history with the UAE, contends The Misfits slanders it as a terrorist state, and the movie will not be shown in that country.
In sum, we have a silly Hollywood-style action movie with a Robin Hood theme, serving the ideology of an elitist authoritarian regime. In other words, a real misfit.
The Misfits. Directed by Renny Harlin. Written by Kurt Wimmer and Robert Henny. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Nick Cannon, Tim Roth, Rami Jaber, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Chung and Mike Angelo. Available July 13 on video on demand.