3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Bricklayer

2023, Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island) -- download

It took me a couple of mornings (I often watch a bit of a movie while drinking my coffee and waking up, before going to work) to get through this, not because I found it terrible, but because it was just ... lacking any compelling reason to watch fully, as time allowed. Sure, I do enjoy these cookie cutter action thriller spy movies, but something about this was getting to me. I finally realize this morning is that this movie feels like the product of AI, as in being a templated, formulaic movie without any hint of personal style, but also containing many nonsensical elements that are there because they fit the mould. Nonsensical may be too strong, but script choices that felt more committee chosen than actual inherent to the story, especially considering this came from a novel.

Speaking of AI, I usually use the wikipedia article of a movie to help me recap the story. This one also must have been written by an AI, as it doesn't capture the plot, like at all, just uses a bot to write a description of a templated, formulaic ex-CIA agent movie... which is also true to the intent of the movie?

Vail (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight) is a bricklayer. He lovingly puts a brick ornamentation piece back together on an old building while listening to jazz music. BUT Vail wasn't always a bricklayer. He is attacked by unknown assailants and fights them off expertly, with trowel in hand. Meanwhile, In Greece, a reporter is called to meet a CIA whistleblower only to shot dead. Nobody knows who did it but Kate Bannon (Nina Dobrev, Love Hard), a feisty (sorry, the bot crept into me for a moment) CIA analyst, captures a picture of a mysterious man in a hat at the train station; not sure why she assumes hat-guy is the bad guy, but at least she has identified the shooter as an ex-CIA agent who was supposedly dead.

Bannon meets with her boss O'Malley (Tim Blake Nelson, The Ballad of Buster Scrugs), who then has her meet up with Vail, cuz the Bad Guy is Radek (Clifton Collins Jr, Westworld), once a deep cover operative for the CIA and Vail was his handler. Vail tells everyone that Radek went rogue when he refused to do a hit for the CIA, and in turn the CIA leaked info about Radek's family, leading to their murders. Vail is not happy with the CIA but understands that if Radek has resurfaced, then Bad Things Could Happen. 

Off to Greece he goes, but has Bannon tagging along behind. In Greece they investigate, intimidate local gangsters, hook up with old friends, reconnect with local fixers and basically run through all the cliches of standard ex-CIA operative movies. Bannon is young and inexperienced, never before in the field, except when she has to be a steely-eyed skilled agent. Vail is a capable, always two steps ahead veteran of spy craft, except when he is outsmarted by goofy gangsters in terrible suits. O'Malley is a by the books company man, except when they want us to believe he may be compromised, or... not. Vail has to stop Radek before he kills more innocent reporters and blames it on the CIA which could destabilize US relations in the rest of the world. Except Vail believes the CIA is responsible for Bad Things, but... oh, whatever, its not like the script understands any motivations beyond what is happening scene to scene.

In general, I enjoy when these movies are completely cookie cutter but make sense, internally. This one just seemed to dance from cliche to cliche, abandoning logic to just pump out a product. Even the whole premise of him being a bricklayer is a thinly used gimmick. Much of the elements that made me cock my head to the side and go "huh?" have faded from memory already, but suffice to say, even for my standards, this one was below par.