Smith, with anything remotely risqué ripped out in favour of something absurdly conservative. There’s probably a much more passionate version of their scenes together somewhere on the cutting room floor.Īfter a while, it begins to feel like a VeggieTales reenactment of Mr. As the film goes on, their attempts to balance lust and animosity get lost in a haphazard edit that can only seem to conceive of human behaviour as what’s being said in words, rather than why those words are being said, or what conversations are being had by people’s body language and lingering glances. Both Q and Keaton speak at a rapid-fire pace, but neither one seems to consider or react to the other’s advances - at least, not in the shots that made it to the screen. Rembrandt carries himself suavely when he first meets Anna - who moonlights as an antique book salesman - but when their dialogue turns to flirtation, something feels deeply off. This stiltedness permeates the rest of the film, especially when Keaton’s character enters the fray. Rather, they speak as if they’ve been handed topics for small talk before entering a room. The problem is that most of Anna and Moody’s scenes are private, and intimate, and their dialogue constantly hints at a much more deep and loving relationship than what we’re shown, and not because they’re particularly restrained as people. It might pique curiosity, and it may even provide clues as to what these people are like behind closed doors, though it offers little more than that. Moody and Anna’s supposedly father-daughter dynamic is certainly pleasant, but the way overhearing a conversation at a restaurant is pleasant. These sound like the ingredients for a good time, but each one curdles rapidly. When Moody is attacked one night, Anna is forced to trace his assailants back to her home country, where she begins to untangle a web from Moody’s past as mysterious clean-up killer Rembrandt (Keaton), with whom she shares a connection, weaves in and out of her story.
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Their interactions with each other are warm and easygoing, but they work with cold-blooded, clockwork precision. The film follows Anna (Q), an international assassin trained by world-class killer Moody (Jackson), who once rescued her in her native Vietnam, and is now her partner on high-paying hit-jobs.