Mickey (Ed Morrone) is a neurotic bodyguard working for an illicit security company who desperately wants to retire. His boss (Billy Zane) convinces him to accept one last job protecting an accountant, who along with his wife, just stole eight million from the Mob. Predictably, Mickey is double-crossed by the company, who also want the couple dead. It’s then up to Mickey to see that no harm comes to the couple before getting revenge for himself.
The casting director deserved some kind of award for getting this cast together. In addition to Billy Zane (who, with his bald head and hangdog expression kind of looks like the love child of Michael Ironside and Jon Polito), we have Randy Couture as… a guy who works for Zane, Johnny Messner as… another guy who works for Zane, Danny Trejo as a hitman (he’s in it for about thirty seconds), James Russo as a bad guy who gets killed early on (I’m sure he was grateful for that), and fucking Dr. Drew as Morrone’s shrink! Then again, the casting director probably should’ve had his award promptly taken away from him for casting Morrone, a guy I have never heard of, in the lead.
I’m not saying every role has to be played by a character actor, former MMA fighter, or reality show host. I’m saying they should at least have some credibility in front of the camera. Morrone plays one of the most unlikeable, grating, annoying assholes I’ve seen in a movie in some time. It would be okay if he looked like an action star, but he looks and sounds like the night manager at a grimy pizzeria. Even then, he doesn’t really pull that off. Imagine Charlie Day imitating Joe Manganiello, and that should give you an idea of what we’re dealing with. He’s so bad that he manages to make Dr. Drew seem Academy Award-worthy in their scene together.
The craftsmanship is real shoddy too, and the action sequences are brief. In fact, there’s so little action that Morrone has to flashback to other unrelated action bits that have nothing to do with the couple in jeopardy plotline. It’s weird because while the action sequences seem abrupt, many of the dialogue scenes start and end with extraneous dead space. A lot of times, you could audibly count “1… 2… 3…” before someone enters or exits the frame. I think the reason for this was because the movie was only eighty minutes long as it is, and the editor had to leave those nonessential bits in there to get the film to a contractually obligated running time. Even if those bits were left on the cutting room floor, Final Kill would’ve still felt way too long.
AKA: The Protector. AKA: Assassination Island.
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