When you take the director of Charlie’s Angels, Terminator Salvation and This Means War you can expect a certain amount of fun tied in with action in these films. Well that would be the case at least if Luc Besson did not write the script. Besson who has written movies like The Professional, Fifth Element, Transporter franchise, and the Taken franchise has also written movies such as From Paris With Love, Lockout, and The Family so there is a limit to his talents clearly. The one thing all of these movies have though, even when they are bad, is at least they are entertaining, okay maybe not The Family, but what 3 Days To Kill leaves out is the action and just packs the comedy with a story that goes nowhere. It is so mixed in with everything else that it comes off as Besson’s original Taken script before edits. 3 Days To Kill will leave you wishing that Kevin Costner had only 3 hours to kill.

If you are going into this movie expecting entertainment, it’s a tragedy you will not find it. In the near two hour run time audiences will be faced with ten or so minutes of comedic life support followed by a fair fifteen twenty minutes of action then drowned out by a near ninety minutes of undeveloped, tangled story. The entire movie is based on Ethan, played by Kevin Costner, taking down the Albino played by Tómas Lemarquis, and the Wolf played by Richard Sammel. However the only information we are ever privileged to is that the Albino makes dirty bombs. That explains the reasoning for his death but the Wolf’s death wish is unjust and confusing. However, Ethan is sick with a type of cancer that has spread to his lungs and doesn’t have much time left. If he wants the chance of spending more time with his estranged family he must go on this mission to get an experimental drug that could help him from Vivi, played by Amber Heard. Can Ethan get his extra time with his family, or will he suffer defeat?

Aside from obvious issues with the script, the direction of McG is also terrible which makes this thrill even more horrendous.  Aside from his nauseating style when Ethan collapses (which happens a lot more than it should) he also allows himself to have an annoying amount of continuity issues. For instance when we see Ethan on his bike by the Eifel Tower, you see his rough surrounding, however in the next shot without time passing he is standing beside a merry-go-round with his bike. It’s the small things like that in the direction that took this beaten script to new levels of horrendous.

When looking at work of Besson’s that is even marginally acceptable 3 Days to Kill misses that mark entirely and falls into a vast wasteland. He doesn’t allow for any twists in the story, much like he didn’t allow that in Lockout either. As well he never builds any development for a single character and has story that goes absolutely nowhere. There are scenes that build suspense and then just end and never get revisited. 3 Days To Kill is a sloppy attempt at a film, and an even worse attempted for a comedic action flick. 3 Days To Kill does not deserve the price of admission let alone your time watching it.

Dear Luc Besson, the title is 3 Days To Kill but in reality it only takes 110 minutes to kill.

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