"…It’s A Rembrandt! And Where Does He Live Then?”
I had a feeling from seeing the trailer for "Wild Target" that I’d enjoy it – and like many others - I am more than pleasantly surprised.
Jonathan Lynn's 2009 film is a hugely enjoyable romp – a kicking little movie with a very witty and warm script. That it stars the truly scrumptious Emily Blunt is good enough for most guys - but mix in real comedic talent like Bill Nighy, Rupert Everett, Martin Freeman and Gregor Fisher - and you’re going to have your funny bones tickled - a lot.
What's also unexpected is the genuine (if unlikely) chemistry between Blunt and Nighy. And while the camera simply adores our Em in every scene she appears in - it’s the twitchy Nighy who’s steals the entire film. He is just superb as the stuffy po-faced assassin Victor Maynard still unable to live without his mother and properly pleased with his lifetime of strangulations, poisonings and a good clean bullet in the head (his preferred trademark). His mad upper-crust mother Louisa has even made him a lovely newspaper-clippings memento of all these killings and put them in a scrapbook for his 52nd birthday (how thoughtful). Veteran and classy British actress Eileen Atkins gives an equally scene-stealing performance here too - a great combo with Nighy.
The story goes like his - Ruby (Blunt) falsifies a rare painting, pawns it off on bad guy Rupert Everett for a cool million quid, but gets rumbled. Victor is called in to ‘remove’ said rumbler. But of course he is completely unhinged by the lovely kleptomaniac Rose and their initial mutual loathing eventually develops into something worth fighting for. Rose doesn't need to be extinguished by Victor, but protected by him instead (even if it costs £30,000 a week to do so). And Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley from Harry Potter) is cleverly cast too as the footloose and parentless young lad Tony - who simply gets tangled up in the whole shooting match, but turns out to have natural gun-slinging capabilities – and therefore become the apprentice Victor never had. They form an unlikely trio as (slightly bumbling) professional killers pursue them (Martin Freeman and a very funny Geoff Bell).
Hardly original stuff I know – but as other reviewers have said, I'd rather watch this 'again' than sit through some of the truly awful rom-com pap thrown at us these days by Hollywood. It may not be an oil painting, but it’s a bloody good copy mate.
Like "Tamara Drew" - "Wild Target" is a very likeable British Ealing-Comedy kind of movie - with a great cast and a very, very witty script. It's a good night in and well worth a punt.
I’m off now to dream of lovely Emily and put down the fact that's she's happily married as a minor inconvenience and trivial detail…
