Killers
starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Tom Selleck and Catherine O’Hara
screenplay by Bob Derosa and T.M. Griffin
directed by Robert Luketic
Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
The Japanese title “Kiss and Kill” is a good one. It feels accurate. I watched Killers mostly to see Tom Selleck and Catherine O’Hara, and it was worth it. Tom Selleck is still a handsome man, and his moustache is still fantastic. I have never been a big Ashton Kutcher fan, but he was good and funny here. Like the Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Killers is a story about married spies, or the family life of spies. When Kutcher tries to leave his old life behind he is targeted by his former agency. What agency? “Let’s just say I work for the blah, blah, blah, and they gave me a license to blah.” That about says it all.
Suddenly everyone in his suburban life is an assassin. Not just a potential assassin, but a real assassin. Everyone. There is no one in the movie who is not trying to kill him. It was funny. Katherine Heigl’s character, Jenny, sounds and moves just like my old girlfriend, Heather. And, she looks like what Heather looked like thirty years ago, too. - the symmetry of her face, her philtrum and lips. And she even talks like Heather:
“I can’t believe I married a spy. What am I, Pussy Galore?”
“Not that I know of.”
I E-mailed her to tell her so. She replied with some deliberately disparaging remarks.
Apart from the obvious jokes written into the script I suppose the comedy of these kinds of husband-wife misadventure movies lies in the recognition of the little secrets that spouses keep from each other and the daily lies that make up not only a marriage, but any social relationship.