DVD Reviews

Killers – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Sep 7, 2010, 13:46 GMT

Trying to recover from a sudden break-up, Jen Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) believes she\'ll never fall in love again. But when she reluctantly joins her parents on a trip to the French Riviera, Jen happens to meet the man of her dreams, the dashing, handsome Spencer Aimes (Ashton Kutcher). Three years later, her seemingly impossible wish has come true: she and Spencer are newlyweds living the ideal suburban life - that ...more

Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher star in this romantic tale of contract killers and sleeper cells.  It’s supposed to be a comedy but when people get two in the heart and one in the head it isn’t all that funny.  

Jennifer Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) has just been dumped by her boyfriend, but she continues on a vacation with her parents (Tom Selleck and Catherine O’Hara) to Nice, France.  While she’s there, she meets Spencer Aimes (Ashton Kutcher) and the two hit it off. 

Aimes, however, has secrets of his own since he just completed a hit of his own since he’s a contract killer for the CIA.  His handler Holbrooke (Martin Mull) congratulates him on a job well done and on to the next.  Aimes has other plans, as he wants to put down roots with Jennifer so he quits his career as a killer – keeping his former occupation a secret. 

Three years later, the two are happily married and Spencer has a construction business.  Things change when he gets a postcard from Holbrooke for one more job.  He refuses but soon a $20 million dollar bounty is on his head and contract killers are coming out of every nook and cranny. 

Some of them are even people that he’s known for years and now Jennifer is fully aware of his former life since she’s in the middle of the murderous mayhem now.  

Killers didn’t seem to know exactly where it was going.  It wasn’t dark enough to be a dark comedy but it has enough comedy that it tries to.  There are some good action sequences but enough people die that the comedy is a bit cancelled out by the seriousness. 

The romantic comedy aspect also seems to take a backseat to the mayhem.  It also takes two to carry a film and Kutcher is a bit too wooden for the task and Heigl’s cheery goofiness seems to clash with all the derring-do.

This type of thing worked much better with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.  Selleck and O’Hara do bring some gravitas to their roles but since the film has its schizophrenic moments.  There are some nice scenes of Nice and it’s always good to see Martin Mull working again.  Nothing adds up to make a memorable film but it does add to an okay time killer if you’re in the mood.  

Killers is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features include the 11-minute “Killer Chemistry” making of, a 1-minute gag reel, 4 minutes of deleted scenes, 6 minutes of alternative scenes, and 5 minutes of extended scenes.  

Killers doesn’t make a killing though some deaths are featured.  Our leads don’t have the right balance of chemistry to make it work but if you’re a fan of either of them you might cut them some slack.  We go from James Bond to Charade, but those original films have the upper hand and this redo only gets shot down.

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