The week once more has brought to audiences the release of yet another direct-to-DVD action thriller movie. Of late, most of these feature either Aaron Eckhart or Olga Kurylenko, such as in Jesse V. Johnson’s Chief of Station which turned out to feature both actors. (Although, it only really stars Eckhart with Kurylenko being a supporting character but it’s fine, she’s in the movie.)
This is the type of film that used to be comfortable in US cinemas across the 80s and 90s. It had a good shot at being a mid-budget film and had a couple of stars with moderate name recognition but not necessarily household Hollywood. These movies were competent and produced reliably well. They weren’t always memorable but they did what they set out to do and were entertaining for the time. There, however, were also films that fit the description and were quite generic while this movie is certainly not in that category.
Eckhart portrays one Ben Malloy who is a CIA Station Chief. Yes, he is a spy, but leads a totally blissful life, married to another spy, Farrah (Laetitia Eido ). The minute she gets all blown up, he goes into retirement and now his son, Nick (Chris Petrovski), will not take his calls. But hold on, perhaps the reason for the wife’s death was not merely an accident. (From the context, I had no idea the boom was supposed to be an accident until a character said so, the movie makes it seem like it was intentional.) He seeks to redress the injustice done her or discover the truth, within a weak set of parameters, which appear to imply that she was up to no good, Malloy is in no rush to do it and reenters the murky realm of intelligence offices, which he has long abandoned.
As a work of fiction, it is plainly a Tom Clancy novel written for vagabonds in airports, the flight attendant novels for forefathers. The story is an intricate complication of several players, changing allegiances, treacheries, turns, and near misses. At the same time, it is like that still and unspecified. The written words put forth by George Mahaffey do not ever resolve any reasonable ambition or rational objectives. Everyone is in search of some kind of item, most likely something he got from Malloy’s wife, but it is never explained what it is, or what the repercussions would be in case one of the parties manages to grab it. It’s as if there was a prompt for an action where the author has simply written “spy stuff happens here” and never returned to complete that paragraph’s details. And indeed, all the typical spy plot elements do take place.
This is an installment with nice visuals. Johnson employs European locations and interesting dirty industrial environments well. It generally feels like a far more generous budget than Johnson usually has at his disposal, and he indeed puts it up there for us to see.
Naturally, when there is action, and there always is, it is better than it ever was the stunt performer turned director sure does his job well in that department. It is not as pronounced as in other movies, particularly those that featured Scott Adkins. Rather than make that the central focus, the film’s tone shifts to more tense thriller beats driven by the feeling of increasing pressure and suspense within the film. Except none of the intrigue is as taut or as exhilarating as it needs to be in order for the level of the film to rise.
The last one goes for broke which is fitting since it is the last one, and goes for shootouts, a cool car chase, a great hand-to-hand fight scene, and many other cool things. This is where Kurylenko finally shows up there is a picture of her displayed on a computer at the beginning but she does not come on screen until the 59-minute mark. She has one large clip that rules but is simply used for speech and little else disappointing.
Eckhart’s front role in this mid-budget drama isn’t bad. A similar film this year is The Bricklayer. He possesses charisma and a stage presence that are sufficient to keep distance from flatness, without being a dynamite performer it’s very clear why studios were looking at him to be a huge star, and also why this did not materialize in the end. But he has found a comfortable place within a particular genre and its relative scale, and I welcome such growth within an artist.
Some of Johnson’s trusted emulators also appear off the bat at the party. Daniel Bernhardt is foremost among them. He has little to work with, however. He showcases the fight core skills of what surely is one of the best fight performers today, but the rest is an automatic goon. And he looks awesome in Russian. In a couple of scenes James Faulkner appears as a “senior intelligence officer,” and there is not much more to expect from his performance than this. After stealing Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury, Nina never sees Bergman except to make a cameo in one scene. It is presented in such a way that you expect some conclusion but no such thing happens and it becomes pointless. It is sad to say, but Alex Pettyfer as another operative, who, like a lot of villains, has no terrorizing elements, does his job fairly. The moment you see him and hear the good news, he is the baddie, you say, “That’s right, he’s the enemy.”
Such are a few nitpicks in the story, the likes of which are Malloy being unaware that a name has just been told even three lines ago or shootouts and blasts on a smallish boat where the bad guys never even suspect such trouble is realistic.
The film never rises above the level of an espionage film. It does try to change the template, but it’s so basic. Again, if you stick around until the final act, great rewards await. Chief of Station feels like one of those films that in a couple of months would be trending on Netflix. For a week or two it will make it to the top ten, and tinpot movie sites would say about a long-lost action film back to the life of the algorithm. Many people will tune into the film, however, the problem is that many of them won’t actually recall the plot specifics.
Well, first and foremost, I really do not care to spoil anything, except to say that it was amazing when Nick, Molloy’s son, completely blew away Molloy’s son’s opponent, a captured and largely helpless antagonist, with a bloody grenade launcher. (Mind you, the monster did kill his mother, however). But the dad is just as EXCEPTIONALLY PROUD! That was quite purposely malicious.
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