High Octane!
Summary
The Courier is a fun action romp with no shortage of R-rated action and Olga Kurylenko is a total badass who still manages to convince as an action hero. The character of Nick is really annoying but aside from that strap in and enjoy the ride.
Plot: In THE COURIER, a female courier (Olga Kurylenko) takes on a mission to deliver a mysterious package to a heavily guarded location. But when it’s revealed that the package is a cyanide bomb intended to kill Nick Murch (Amit Shah), a witness testifying against crime lord Ezekiel Mannings (Gary Oldman), the courier manages to escape — with the witness. The two end up trapped in an underground parking lot full of armed goons who’ve been sent to finish the job. The criminals have an hour to find and kill them before police backup arrives. As the clock counts down, the courier must use all her power to evade and outwit their attackers before she and Nick are killed.
Review: Not to be confused with the Jeffrey Dean Morgan film of the same name this new movie called The Courier stars Olga Kurylenko who I pretty much fell in love with back when Quantum of Solace came out. She is not only very attractive but over the years she has starred in several solid action movies and made a name for herself as a new badass on the block.
Normally when you watch an action movie with a woman fighting guys three times their size it stretches credibility but, in The Courier Olga gets the absolute crap beaten out of her at regular intervals but she is mentally strong and her past military training gives her an upper hand. She is believable in the (impressively violent) action scenes and there are some hard R moments and imaginative kills which had me cheering at several points.
The Courier also stars Gary Oldman as an eye patch wearing (and why not?) crime lord called Ezekiel Mannings (amazing name) who spends most of the movie under house arrest in the USA as his goons in the UK try to take out a witness who is going to squeal on him as he saw Mannings murder someone in cold blood. Oldman’s best villain will always be Ivan Korshunov from Air Force One as he was just mean as Hell. He is more restrained this time and doesn’t get to do much other than listen to opera music and piss off the FBI agents guarding him but he has a few choice moments.
The scene stealing villain in this piece is actually William Mosely who you’ll remember as Peter Pevensie in the Narnia movies; he’s all grown up now and hams it up as corrupt Agent Bryant who will stop at nothing to take out the witness. You could complain about such an over the top performance but it’s Mosley who makes this feel like a classic old-school action movie.
For the most part The Courier hits the mark- Ridiculous villains? Check. Awesome kills? Check. Badass hero? Check. One-liners? Check.
I love contained action movies and The Courier mostly takes place in a parking garage as the nameless Courier tries to protect the witness from Manning’s henchmen. Director Zackary Adler keeps the pacing tight and the fight scenes coherent so I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
Storywise we’ve seen this before but pretty much every story has already been told and The Courier has enough bouts of regular bloodshed to keep genre fans amused.
My biggest problem with the movie was the witness himself, Nick (Amit Shah) who was such a complete pussy that it failed to convince that any man could be so weak and useless. I can see what the idea was; it’s a role reversal of movies like Commando where the guy is the invincible badass and the girl spends the majority of movie complaining and being a coward. This time Nick is the screaming bitch and The Courier is the hero but I was rooting for the villains just to shut him up. I hate characters like that and he particularly irked me.
The music score was contemporary and impressive with the main theme over the end credits especially cool and if the score becomes available then I may just have to purchase it.
Overall, The Courier delivers the action goods (sorry) with Olga Kurylenko as a total badass and some really imaginative and awesome kills. Oldman doesn’t do all that much and the character of Nick was incredibly irritating but aside from that I had a lot of fun. The Courier is a very entertaining character and I would love to see her return in a TV series or further movies.