Netflix And Chill: 24 Hours To Live (2017)

Ethan Hawke stars in this action thriller, the kind of slick, violent fare that you would be forgiven for assuming had Luc Besson in a producer role. It's generic stuff, but it's fairly well put together and has a very small role for Rutger Hauer (always welcome).

Hawke is a top assassin named Travis Conrad. He wants to enjoy a holiday but is pestered back into the field by his colleague, and friend, Jim (Paul Anderson). It's an important job, and the pay available for it reflects that. Despite his skills, Travis is shot and killed. But that's just a temporary setback, and the company soon have him back on his feet and ready to finish the job. For 24 hours anyway (hence the title). Travis quickly realises that there's more to this job than just taking out someone who deserves to be dealt with. There's something not right about the whole thing.

Directed by Brian Smrz, 24 Hours To Live is fast-paced and full of decent action moments. Considering the premise of his previous feature, Hero Wanted (his directorial debut), it would seem that Smrz has an affinity for movies in which guys drag themselves out of hospital beds to head off and kill lots of people. Nothing wrong with sticking to what you know, and as I have yet to see Hero Wanted I cannot say if there are many other similarities.

The plotting, although obvious, is perfectly acceptable in the way the premise is set up and played out. Writers Ron Mita and Jim McClain (who have been writing together for a few years now, judging by their filmography), and Zach Dean keep everything at just the right level of enjoyable silliness. This is not a film designed for anyone who wants to overthink things, but it manages to avoid seeming completely unbelievable, even during some of the bigger set-pieces (with a sequence showing Hawke trying to keep his "target" safe from various sharpshooters being a definite highlight).

Hawke is fine in the lead role. He's surprisingly believable as a shooter who can also win out in hand-to-hand combat, especially when the odds are stacked against him. Andersdon does okay in his role, although he's hampered by some of the more predictable script elements, and Liam Cunningham has a lot of fun in his limited amount of screentime. Xu Qing (playing a guard of the main target) should have been given more to do, instead of becoming the main motivator for Hawke's character, but she fares better in the first half of the film, when actually given some of the action, than in the second half.

I doubt this is going to be a film that will be remembered years from now, and it's not one that anyone should rush out to make their top priority, but it's a decent way to spend 90 minutes. And if they found a way to extend the lifespan of Hawke to give him Another 24 Hours To Live then, yes, I would be up for watching that.

6/10

The disc is available here.
Americans can buy it here.

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