Film Review: 'Erased'
Reviewed online, San Francisco, May 15, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 104 MIN.
Production
(Canada-Belgium) A
Radius-TWC (in U.S.) release of an E-Motion and Expatriate Films
production in association with Informant Media/Smash Media and
uFund/uFilm. Produced by Karl Richards, Adrian Politowski, Jonathan
Vanger. Executive producers, Judy Cairo, Harry Winer, Gilles Waterkeyn,
Bastian Sirowdot, John Fremes, Claude Leger, Jeremy Burdek, Nadia
Khamlichi, Peter Bevan, Phil Hope, Joe Rudge, James Gibb, Michael A.
Simpson, Howard Meltzer, Aaron Eckhart, Leo Joseph, Eric Brenner, Mark
Kress, Jason Rimokh, David Harfield.
Crew
Directed by Philipp Stoelzl. Screenplay, Arash Amel.
Camera (color, HD, widescreen), Kolja Brandt; editor, Dominique Fortin;
music, Jeff Danna; production designer, Jean-Francois Campeau; costume
designer, Pascaline Chavanne; art director, Claude Tremblay; set
decorators, Elisabeth Willilams, Joel Dumuoulin; sound (Dolby Digital),
Claude La Haye; re-recording mixers, Luc Boudrias, Pierre-Jules Auduet;
assistant director, Sean Dwyer; casting, Andrea Kenyon, Randi Wells,
Michael Bier, Gaby Kester.
With
Aaron Eckhart, Liana Liberato, Olga
Kurylenko, Garrick Hagon, Eric Godon, Yassine Fadel, Neil Napier, David
Bark-Jones, Alexander Fehling, Nick Alachiotis, Ronnie Commissaris,
Fabrice Boutique, Debbie Wong, Ron White. (English, French, Croatian
dialogue)
Ben Logan (Eckhart) left the CIA — for reasons not explained until well into the proceedings — to work for the Antwerp office of a European company which makes devices that can penetrate the highest-security systems, presumably benefiting good-guy governments. It’s a job he’s held for just a few weeks. Also new and somewhat awkward is his living situation with his teenage daughter Amy (Liana Liberato), still recovering from the loss of her mother, whom Ben had separated from long before she became terminally ill.
Eventually it becomes clear that Ben has been set up, his skills exploited by a shadow employer with no apparent ties to the legit one he thought had hired him; he’s forced to scram with an initially panicked, then surprisingly resourceful Amy. Together they elude assassins and local cops, and deal with Amy’s understandable shock that she never knew her dad’s true profession, let alone his adeptness at killing bad guys, picking locks and myriad other normally criminal activities.
The tricky script by Arash Amel (of the forthcoming “Grace of Monaco”) borders on the over-convoluted in its conspiracy-theory intricacies, and occasionally risks silliness with a “You lied to me! You’re the worst dad ever!” father/daughter dynamic. But it’s all very confidently handled by Stoelzl, with excellent use of locations and an able multinational cast. While never exactly
nerve-jangling, or as visceral as the “Bourne” series in its action sequences, it’s still a confidently engineered, propulsive piece of intelligent action cinema.
An actor who probably should have become a major American star some time ago, Eckhart easily shoulders the authority of an essentially decent man and father nonetheless accustomed to violence, who convincingly speaks many languages and proves awfully capable in a wide range of high-pressure situations (although the thesp’s decision to do the cliched manly-man Eastwoodian “whisper voice” is debatable). Liberato is decent; the currently overexposed Olga Kurylenko doesn’t do much with her mole role. Colorful supporting cast includes Alexander Fehling and Nick Alachiotis as two among
many characters dispatched to eliminate our protagonists.
Pic has a handsome widescreen look, a brisk pace and an appropriate if conventional score by Jeff Danna. Tech/design elements are polished.
