For Emma Brackett, aka Anna Peller, traveling to international locales to kill people is losing its charm.
And it kinda shows.
No, her bullets aren’t missing their mark. And her neck-garroting skills haven’t faltered. But she’s definitely feeling the strain. And her husband Dave can see it, too.
Of course, Dave thinks that she’s travelling around North America as a marketing expert, not flying abroad as a murderous marksman. He chalks her lackluster attitude up to, well, a romantic failing on his part.
Perhaps he just hasn’t been as supportive or amorous as he should be. Maybe all of Emma’s business responsibilities, mixed with caring for a husband and two kids, are simply draining the life out of their relationship.
As a solution, Dave suggests a “role play” night at a pricey local hotel to spice things up. Emma could put on a wig and a slinky dress and get a drink at the bar, and he can stroll in as a, uh … world-traveling photographer! Yeah, that would work. They can play roles, get tipsy, and end up in an expensive suite for a bit of, wink-wink, “unmarried” fun.
Emma lovingly agrees. Though, frankly, dressing up in a disguise is nothing new for her. But she’ll do it for Dave this time.
The problem is, pictures of Emma have been popping up on the dark web lately. Her handler has been working to spot them and take them down, but the heat on her identity has definitely been dialed up. Her former assassination-for-hire organization, Sovereign, is looking for her and getting closer every day.
So when Emma shows up in that fancy hotel bar, she’s quickly spotted by a top-shelf killer. And before you can say, Hey there, Beautiful, can I buy you a drink? Emma and Dave’s romantic getaway goes sideways in a fairly public, police-are-now-looking-for-a-killer way.
It suddenly feels like everything is falling apart. And if Emma doesn’t want to lose her family … or her life, she’s gotta come up with a very good plan.
Emma and Dave love each other. And they both will go to any lengths to protect their two kids, Wyatt and Caroline. Of course, their individual definitions of “any lengths” are initially very different. Eventually, however, both parents step up to put their lives on the line for their family.
In addition, Emma and Dave repeatedly express their love for each other in the heat of their deadly and threatening troubles. “I never fell out of love with you,” a troubled Dave assures his wife. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to. And right now, I really, really want to.”
None.
Dave’s role play idea obviously centers around a “spicy” sexual outing for the two of them. He even buys Emma a “sexy nurse” costume that she doesn’t use. The dress she does wear is very formfitting and provocative, however. That and another outfit bare some cleavage. The two of them embrace and kiss on top of the hotel bed before the camera cuts away. They kiss later as well.
There’s a distinct difference between Emma’s playful side as a mom and wife, and her all-business assassin side. We see the bloody splash of her sniper bullets hitting their mark on targeted individual’s heads. She leaps into battering battles with various men and women. The combatants are all battered and flipped, in some cases through large glass doors and windows. Some have their heads brutally bashed on hard surfaces.
People get punched and viciously stabbed (seen from a distance and up close). A drugged man is smashed head-first through a glass table. There are also gun battles between assailants with pistols and automatic rifles. One man is shot in the side and bleeds to death. And a woman is shot in the abdomen and left to die.
Dave is also shot in the side at close range, but Emma assures him that it was a clean wound that “missed all the vitals.” That said, he still bleeds slowly, soaking his shirt and jacket, for some time. In the course of her battles, Emma and her clothes get spattered with blood. A woman is shot, execution-style, by a bullet to the back of her head.
Someone also grabs Emma’s children, and though she doesn’t physically harm them, she threatens to do so if Emma doesn’t kill someone dear to her.
The dialogue includes seven f-words and more than a dozen s-words, along with several uses each of “h—” and “d–n.” God’s name is misused four times.
Emma and Dave consume quite a bit of alcohol at the hotel bar (as does another individual), including multiple mixed drinks and shots of Tequila. They also sip champagne back in their hotel room.
Emma slips poison into someone’s drink, and we see the deadly effects. Several people (including Emma and Dave) are shot by a tranquilizer darts. (The camera watches closely as Emma pulls the dart from her neck.)
Someone promises to teach Emma’s kids to be killers just like she was taught. And this person declares that there is always a heavy price to pay in life.
Have you heard that there are now AI-powered script generators? Yep. They’re still a bit clunky, perhaps, but you can Google one up.
And though Amazon Prime’s new pic, Role Play, wasn’t created by AI (at least, I don’t think it was), it kinda feels like it could have been. This hitwoman action comedy appears to pick up all of its major plot points from a variety of other recognizable films. (True Lies and Spy Kids come to mind). And then there’s just enough nasty foul language and blood spatter sprinkled in to downplay its goofy side and nudge it out of the category of anything you’d want to show kids.
That’s not to say this film is a complete waste of date-night-in-front-of-the-TV time. Stars Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo create very likeable characters and perform yeoman’s work in lifting this weak-tea film above and beyond its cinematic parts. And supporting players Bill Nighy and Connie Nielsen make their small “nothing” roles memorable.
Hey, the script even goes so far as to suggest that settling down with a family can be far more rewarding than living life as a hired assassin. (Just in case you were wondering about a lifestyle change.)
It’s a great message—as far as it goes. But those few positives don’t really eclipse the other not-so-great bits. Unless, that is, you’re wanting to pull clips for an acting class.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
