(andPOP) - The problem is that Wanted acts like it's making a deeper point than it actually is.
The problem is it acts like it's making a point, period.
This has been marketed as a fun, bullet-riddled action movie, a respite from the bloodless PG-13 violence that's become the norm. And it is. What it's not is a case study in that gnawing feeling that we're all drones mindlessly toiling away at thankless, meaningless jobs, accomplishing nothing and occasionally numbing the existential pain with booze, sex, and/or entertainment.
To be fair, it starts out that way. The first 30 minutes do an excellent job of establishing protagonist Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy)'s pathetic corner of existence: he lives in a dump, next to the train tracks but no discernable subway station; suffers from panic attacks; works at a dead-end office job; his boss hates him; his "best friend" is screwing his "girlfriend"; and he knows about the affair but does nothing. Early on he can't withdraw money from his bank account because he has only $15 left and bank machines dispense in multiples of 20, but he still has enough to loan his friend some money when the guy's a few bucks short for condoms.
Enter Angelina Jolie, who informs Wesley that his father was part of an underground society of assassins, and that what Wesley thinks are panic attacks actually allow him to operate faster than others - which basically means he can make bullets turn corners and shoot a dozen people before they've realized he's in the room.
Admittedly, the action sequences are fantastic. Timur Bekmambetov, a Russian director best known for a pair of well-regarded vampire films, Night Watch and Day Watch, knows how to stage a shootout, fight, or chase scene (sometimes all three at once), and his actors, particularly Jolie, strike the right note for this material. But two ingredients keep the film from greatness - one, a "twist," in retrospect is more or less as arbitrary as Morgan Freeman leading a group of assassins who take orders from a loom anyway. But the other - denying us a proper showdown not to set up for a sequel, but to pretend the film is making a point - sticks in my craw. Surely it's not spoiling anything to say that at the end of the film Wesley's quit his job, dumped his girlfriend, grown a pair and is living in shiny new digs? What have you done with your life lately, he asks the camera, after assassinating someone from his living room.
Again, viewers who pay for Wanted aren't expecting a insightful diatribe regarding modern society's collective ennui. And there isn't. But it's a little disconcerting to watch a film whose message seems to be: if you're stuck in a dead-end job, with no ambition and a relationship that isn't going anywhere, simply have a hot woman track you down, learn to kill people and everything else will fall into place.
What a deeply amoral movie.
