Intelligent 'A' Category Movie (SPOILER ALERT)
Some commenters here on IMDB wrote that 3 Days to Kill was the worst movie they had seen. They need to see more movies then. There are far worse than this. Some critics that reviewed the film say that the story had an underdeveloped family conflict were not watching closely enough. The problem with 3 Days to Kill is that the producers advertised it as a pure action vehicle. Expectations were raised in the wrong direction. Viewers that may have been familiar with Luc Beeson, the writer behind The Taken series starring Liam Neesom, might have thought 3 Days to Kill was written around the action scenes.
There are a number of themes that the story follows; a man faces death from a dread disease, making it more ironic that the goal of his "business" all of his career was killing people. Forced to retire on an insufficient pension, Ethan bargains with ViVi (Amber Heard's character) over medical treatment and money versus dead body counts in order to return to work.
Prior to learning of his terminal prognosis, Ethan was an efficient killing machine that performed his work clinically and coldly. There was no conscience, it was all in a day’s work. After he learns of his short time left, Ethan tries to reconnect with his past identity and to find love and a common life with Zooey, his only child. She is the only evidence of his existence on the planet after he dies. All the subplots revolve around his winning the affection of his daughter and acceptance by Tina, his wife.
The gun fights, the bombing and the car chase are presented as a part of Ethan's work-a-day world. Ethan is so practiced at it that he has mastered it; there are no dilemmas or problems to solve “at the office.” His difficulty is justifying his regrets and fears; none of them involve work.
After he learns he is about to die, he takes a different approach to his work hoping he can find clues to resolve his lack of home life. His interaction with Yilmaz, the chauffeur owner, reveals that both good guys and bad guys have domestic problems and needs. Both have teenage daughter difficulties; Yilmaz has a “normal life” that is steady and consistent. Ethan brings his unpredictable chaos to the edge of Yilmaz’s door.
Even Ethan's choice to involve Guido the Accountant to talk directly to Zooey is a way to cross the bridge to connect back to her. We learn Guido is a small person, concerned with the care of his elderly mother and not moving money around in the Wolf’s accounts. Guido does the books as “part of the day at the office,” but he shows Ethan that he has long standing attention to his family. It contrasts vividly with Ethan always being “somewhere else,” like being in Africa when Zooey was born. Asked by the squatter if Ethan was doing good in Africa, Ethan hesitates knowing that his mission was to eliminate an enemy of the Agency.
We can assume that characters in other action movie have similar life problems. That dimension is barely touched. We've seen newer action movies, lately from actors like Jason Statham and the aforementioned Liam Neesom that have a domestic theme involving an innocent daughter or young female. The theme is that the hero must overcome challenges in order to protect the young girls.
Before watching 3 Days to Kill (and reading reviews on IMDB) I thought it would be a second generation of the "Taken" series. While there are similar elements, Neesom's and Statham's movies stayed centered on the action, while 3 Days to Kill focused on the characters first, then the action.
There were small threads all through the story where Ethan's work contradicted his domestic life. The easiest one to see was during the car chase when Ethan ran over a bicycle. That obviously affected innocent characters not represented in the story whose lives would be disrupted by Ethan's callous destruction of the bike. Juxtapose that destruction with Ethan's obsession with the purple bike he bought for his daughter. He used the bike as a tool to reconnect and heal their disrupted lives. His soulless work killing bad guys had rarely if ever intersected with ordinary life.
Facing the end of his own life, Ethan finds there are not enough memories, no fulfillment in his family or his personal experiences. Cold reality strikes Ethan in the face when the proud grandfather of the squatters hands his newborn grandchild to Ethan. The symbolism of total innocence of the child versus the dark cloud of Ethan’s past meet in stark contrast.
The grandfather tells Ethan that his daughter named the grandson “Ethan,” because it was to honor a great man. Ethan shrinks from the honor bestowed on him even as the grandfather tells Ethan that the daughter (looking intently and admiringly at Ethan) had thought long and hard about the name because of its importance. Ethan is deep enough in his attempt to win over Zooey and Tina that he suffers guilt knowing he was wrong in wanting to throw the squatters out of the apartment when he first arrived back in Paris.
Gazing at the large, extended multigenerational family squatting there, Ethan realizes that they belonged in the apartment because they had riches far greater than his; the family was dirt poor but they had the bounty of the love and care in the family. Ethan understands his depth of emptiness because, with limited time left, he has no treasure of family to call his own and limited ways to try to acquire them. His mechanically functioned life of a lone traveling gypsy killer has left him with nothing.
Other themes were the contrasts of Ethan showing enormous destructive power in defeating his opponents that left him exhausted from his dying energy. The fact that he is dying from cancer, a malignancy that destroys the engine of his lethal power can be metaphorically balanced with the fact that the work of his career not only destroyed his enemies, but it destroyed his family relationships. Ultimately, the cancer ate away at his vital organs to render him vulnerable and nearly harmless on the job.
Ethan has nearly won over his daughter and sees success ahead with his wife in the 3rd Act. The chance meeting between him and Wolf, the main antagonist, jeopardizes not only his efforts to connect to his family but threatens their physical safety as well. Forced into action, Ethan overwhelms his adversaries except for the main villain. His efforts had again weakened him and he stumbles and falls before completing his task.
ViVi appears, representing the symbol of the surgical efficiency of his profession, who goads him to finish his work. Ethan rejects his authority’s command figure, giving the reason that his wife wanted him to quit. ViVi does not hesitate; she quickly terminates Wolf where he lays. Additional agents expertly swoop in to drag Wolf away before the local authorities arrive.
Rather than rely on the new miracle drug to give him more time, Ethan's refusal to kill Wolf in front of Tina is his final demonstration his family means more than his work. Believing that his disobedience to ViVi has cost him access to the wonder drug, Ethan is content to spend the rest of his days finding happiness with Zooey, and through Zooey’s prodding, ultimately with Tina.
Finding a syringe with the wonder drug in a Christmas gift wrapped box, Ethan gains the satisfaction that under all the stainless veneer of ViVi, she understands and approves of Ethan’s efforts to have a life before he dies. ViVi has not lost her humanity… yet… and supports him by supplying Ethan with the wonder drug to give him even more time.
The story uses satire of the good guy-bad guy business, parody of the typecast villains and an honest witticism between Ethan and his supporting characters. I thought certain scenes were comical, not laughingly funny but generating a smiling reaction available if the viewer understands the weaving of the subplots in the story.
3 Days to Kill is an intelligent story of the frailty of the human condition and relationships, the tenterhooks of family, and how that is made unimportant in the institution of the “Great Game” of heroes and villains.
The film is well acted, with Kevin Costner delivering an entirely believable Ethan. My opinion is that Costner and Liam Neesom get a raw deal from snide critics because of the actors’ long careers that, like many businesses, had their successes and their failures. Not every movie is “good” because it has “Hangover” in its name. Both Costner and Neesom give a professional performance even if the material is not that great.
Hailee Steinfield as Zooey and Connie Nielsen as Tina are completely identifiable as Ethan’s alienated daughter and wife. The list of support characters, mostly unknown in American movies, were deftly casted to both look and act to bring their personalities to life.
The film has high production values in photography, costuming and set design. This is an A movie. It’s a pity it was advertised incorrectly and failed in part because bored movie critics that eat too much popcorn bad mouthed it. It may not be the average viewer's cup of tea. I would encourage potential fans that would likely shrug it off as I almost did. The bottom line, 3 Days to Kill is an entertaining way to spend two hours of your life, especially with your significant other.