The Protégé: Lethally Fun Actioner Exalts its Female Lead, Which Here is Plenty
By Kim Hughes
Rating: B
A kooky but apt metaphor, for your consideration. Starry actioner The Protégé is a filmic version of empty calories: irresistible if short on sustenance and of an ilk that’s best rationed carefully.
Its hugely watchable stars Maggie Q (of the Divergent series), Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Keaton seem to intuit this fact, and gamely run with it for the duration of the film, which moves breathlessly between daring, choreographed action sequences of the Mission Impossible variety and cat-and-mouse flashes of chase and flee.
The film opens in Da Nang, Vietnam in 1991 where elite hired assassin Moody (Jackson) — his occupation is revealed in short order — enters what looks like a shady, soulless backroom filled with dead bodies, a big bag of cash, and one very alive, blood-splattered child hiding in a cupboard while gripping a gun.
Fast-forward 30 years to Bucharest and the child, Anna, is now a lethal assassin just like her mentor Moody, who we learn took Anna under his wing, brought her to London, and schooled her in the fine art of high-priced murder-for-hire.
We know it’s high priced because Moody lives with a housekeeper in an exquisite gazillion-pound mansion while Anna runs an antique bookshop so successful and well-funded that ultra-rare books can be handled without gloves because… money! It’s everywhere! Anyway, when Moody turns up dead, loyal, loving Anna is on the trail of his killers who, not surprisingly, are very bad people with very deep pockets.
While in pursuit, Anna encounters Rembrandt (Keaton, and yes, the name gets play) who has been panting after her since a first encounter in the bookstore, where the pair display exceptional literary acumen. From here, these two will spar violently amid a combustible sexuality entirely reminiscent of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and similarly larded with the aspirational accoutrements of fancy threads, flashy wheels, and pricey digs.
Both Anna and Rembrandt kind of wants the other dead… but also just kind of wants the other. Your thoughts on whether a 42-year-old Maggie Q would desire a 69-year-old Michael Keaton are entirely yours to ponder.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
That aside, The Protégé has much to recommend it in addition to its before-mentioned action scenes. Everyone is committed here, there are two didn’t-see-those-coming plot twists, and genuine humour easing several troubling scenes of torture and murder, which are played for the horrors they are.
There is also a genuine thrill in seeing a female character outfox, outperform, outfight, outsmart, and generally outmaneuver a cadre of thugs and international masterminds with little more than her wits and physical agility. Q had me believing in her superpowers from her first grisly murder to her last, and while that may not be something to applaud in the broader sense, it sure propels a plot.
While Anna’s backstory is laid out coherently, I did find the trail of baddies responsible for Moody’s death a bit tricky to follow. But the niggling whos and whys dissolved amid the action, which dominates and delights, as director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) never lets the pace slag. Not exactly deep, but The Protégé is fun. It doesn’t all have to be spinach, right?
The Protégé. Directed by Martin Campbell. Starring Maggie Q, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Keaton. In theatres August 20.