Classified, Starring Aaron Eckhart

This is why its not a bad idea to go into the office at least a few days a week. Evan Shaw thought he was doing jobs for an ultra-double-secret division of the CIA. He was recruited by an old trusted colleague, but it turns out he has been under new management for several years. Upon learning the truth, Shaw decides to file a grievance in Roel Reine’s Classified, which is now available on VOD.

Shaw almost left the assassination business, but his old friend Kevin Angler lured him back. He was ready to walk away and spend the rest of his life with Monica Walker, but after her accidental death (which are usually suspicious in his secretive world), Shaw doubled down on the lone wolf lifestyle. Now, Shaw travels from one port-of-call to another, picking up his coded instructions from newspaper classified ads. However, in recent years, his targets changed from cartel bosses and warlords to corporate tycoons and scientists. Yet, he needed a maverick MI6 agent like Kacey to put the pieces together for him.

Of course, he initially refuses to believe, until he starts verifying much of her intel, including Angler’s obituary. Soon, they are off to Malta, where the Shaw was originally recruited. Unfortunately, the super-stealthy assassin never realized his duplicitous employers GPS-chipped him, so they know he is coming.

Frankly, Malta is the perfect setting for Classified, given it was recently governed by PM Jospeh Muscat, whose government was found “collectively responsible” for the political assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Carauna Galizia. If there is a capitol of corruption, it would be Malta.

The tiny EU nation also apparently hands out production tax-credits like candy, while allowing films crews to stage all kinds of pyrotechnics around the islands most picturesque tourist attractions. One thing Classified has going for it is scenic locales—and it is pretty much the only thing.

To be fair, Aaron Eckhart is reliably grizzled as Shaw. However, it is glaringly obvious Abigail Breslin had zero firearms training. Her one-handed grips with absolutely no recoil would even raise the eyebrows of Amish pacifists. Breslin’s rapport with Eckhart isn’t great, but it is horrible either, but it hardly matters in a film like this.

Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, on DVD

Mike Fallon is a talented fighter, but his preferred method for assassinations is arranging “convenient accidents” that the police never investigate with much thoroughness. It therefore makes sense that he would live to see another day of misadventures after the carnage of his first movie. It turns out Malta is a great place for a hitman to work, given its handy proximity to Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. However, trouble still finds him there in the Kirby Brothers’ Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Fallon still feels bad about killing all his colleagues in Big Ray’s hitman guild during the first film, but what can you do? What’s done is done. He wanted to lay low in Malta, but he soon found himself busier than ever. That is hardly surprising, considering former Maltese Labour Party Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (or his associates) hired a hitman to assassinate investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Talk about a friendly business environment—for hired killers.

Still, Fallon carries a heavy load of guilt over what happened. Technically, he was the good guy, saving his ex, but there is no getting around the fact he killed a lot of his friends. That is why he is uncharacteristically welcoming when his old mate, tinkering hitman Finicky Fred shows up in Valetta, looking for the internet girlfriend (whom Fallon assumes scammed him). Soon, they are teaming up on jobs, until Mrs. Zuzzer, a legendarily ruthless crime family matriarch kidnaps Fred. If Fallon wants him back, he will have to eliminate all the international assassins who have accepted the non-exclusive contract on her idiot son Dante, awkwardly including Big Ray. Ordinarily, Fallon would tell her to go pound sand, but that guilt still has a hold on him.

Like the first film, Hitman’s Holiday is a terrific showcase for Scott Adkins’ martial arts skills. He also shows off solid comedic chops, but never at the expense of the action. To Adkins’ credit, generously shares the screen with Sarah Chang, who definitely deserves breakout action stardom for her work as Wong Siu-ling. Essentially, Fallon has hired her to be like Burt Kwouk in the Pink Panther movies, attacking him once a week to keep him sharp. Of course, they team-up against some imposing martial artists and a psychotic killer-clown, who can’t feel pain.

The Grand Duke of Corsica, Set in Malta

The political assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia rocked the government of Malta. Many politicians and their allies were embroiled in the scandal, but to date, only the three thuggish assassins have been prosecuted. However, divine retribution might be coming in the form of an unusually virulent strain of malaria. British architect Alfred Rott might be lacking in social graces, but he is sufficiently professional to see his latest job through, despite the perilous outbreak in screenwriter-director Daniel Graham’s The Grand Duke of Corsica, which releases tomorrow on VOD (and opens theatrically in Brooklyn, just barely).

The Grand Duke lives in Malta, rather than Corsica, in the decaying luxury you might expect from a Thomas Mann novel. Rott originally came to the corrupt but picturesque EU member-nation to build a concert hall, but he did not suffer criticism gladly when the commissioning committee objected to his design’s resemblance to female sex organs. However, that leaves Rott free to accept the Grand Duke’s commission: his tomb.

Rott is not sure what to make of his potential client, but as he enjoys the noble’s hospitality, the architect starts to warm to his eccentricities and his commission. Weirdly, we are not sure what to make of the rest of the film, because Rott’s interactions with the Grand Duke are its most grounded scenes. Meanwhile, more or less, an up-and-coming actor is filming a production about St. Francis of Assisi, until the pandemic interrupts.

Unfortunately, Corsica just doesn’t work as a film. Its deliberate artiness is rife with pretention, but it lacks the grand deliriousness of a film like Lech Majewski’s Valley of the Gods. However, it is not without its merits, primarily those of Timothy Spall, who is compulsively watchable as the blunt-spoken Rott. Wouldn’t you love to hear his character review this film? It would be brutal.