Sure,
the pay is great, but hitmen do not have any benefits. You have to build your
nest egg without any matching contributions and your medical is 100% co-pay.
These things start to matter when you get to be Asher’s age. He doesn’t think
he is going anywhere, but his body is not so sure in Michael Caton-Jones’s Asher (trailer here), which opens
today in New York.
Frankly,
Asher would not have lasted this long if he were not so lethally effective at
his job. However, his latest assignment got a little complicated. A hot day
combined with an out-of-order elevator leads to a fainting spell he recovers
from in Sophie’s apartment. Of course, she has no idea he is there to kill her
neighbor, but his gruff, socially awkward behavior will make her think twice
when he returns to ask her out. Nevertheless, she is curious enough to eventually
accept, at which point they start to click.
Arguably,
this is the perfect time for Asher to get serious about a relationship and ease
out of the business. His former protégé has been getting all the really choice
contracts lately. However, it hard for a cat like Asher to change his ways.
Unfortunately, that also means Sophie could be at risk when a dodgy assignment
he was talked into taking turns into a full-blown vendetta.
Asher is a relatively
small, unassuming film, with a little bit Tarantino style action, but it works
on its own level. In some ways, it could be considered Ron Perlman’s Gran Torino or Harry Brown, in which he contemplates his own mortality within the
sort of off-center genre film that he is certainly no stranger to. He was
probably born to be Asher, but he plays the part with surprising restraint—and even
a little bit of soul.
Famke
Janssen is also terrific as Sophie, portraying her as smart, seductive, and
vulnerable, as well as a little naïve. She and Perlman develop some pleasantly
easy-going chemistry together. On the other hand, it is depressing to see
Jacqueline Bissett cast as yet another dementia-troubled mother. In fact, the
side-plot involving Sophie’s mom Dora threatens to drag the film down the same
unrewarding narrative path as Grace
Quigley (Katharine Hepburn’s final big-screen star vehicle), but
Caton-Jones pulls it out of that nose-dive.
