Review: The Expatriate

Aaron Eckhart plays a former CIA op who is now in Belgium lending his services as a security systems consultant for a big corporation that has a branch there. He is currently living with his estranged teen daughter (Liana Liberato), after the death of her mother back in the States. Liberato isn’t terribly happy with the move, and even less happy that dad constantly misses important things in her life to stay back late at work. One day Eckhart walks into his office at work to find…nothing. Nothing is there. Nothing. No one. No trace that there had ever been a corporate office building there at all. When he contacts the company’s HQ in the US, they seem to have no knowledge of any branch in Belgium whatsoever. Even his email account is completely gone. And then someone starts shooting at him. He also finds that several of his co-workers have been targeted for extermination (and weren’t so lucky). So now he and the daughter who frankly resents him have to stick together and go on the run in order to find out what the hell is going on. Olga Kurylenko plays Eckhart’s former CIA handler (and former flame), who may or may not be trying to help Eckhart.

 

I’m not sure why Aaron Eckhart is all of a sudden turning up in direct-to-DVD thrillers, but his innate likeability (yes, the guy from “In the Company of Men” is now innately likeable, contradictory as that may sound) and obvious solid acting talent really do elevate this 2012 film from director Philipp Stolzl (writer-director of “Goethe!” and director of Garbage’s clip for ‘The World is Not Enough’) and writer Arash Amel (who went on to script the flop “Grace of Monaco”). The film is actually much better than its direct-to-DVD status and eleventy billion credited production/distribution companies suggest. Sure, for a Belgian-set film there’s not one Belgian sounding person in the whole damn thing, but it has the kind of seemingly impossible mystery/thriller that I find irresistible. You keep watching because you can’t work out just how the hell this guy is gonna get out of the jam he is in nor exactly where it’s headed.

 

Eckhart (who also produced) is perfectly cast, much better than the Wesley Snipes’, Steven Seagals, and Cuba Gooding Jrs who would normally headline this kind of thing (albeit a much lesser quality version of it). Mind you, I did have one quibble with his character forgetting that his high school-age daughter has a peanut allergy. I mean, come on. By that age, you guys should have that sort of thing down to a fine science, surely. Deadbeat dad or not, that’s just dumb in an otherwise relatively well-written film. The big surprise in the cast is that the normally bland Olga Kurylenko is actually quite good here. I didn’t know she had it in her to be so competent. I also liked that the film is pretty damn merciless about death. Good or at least innocent people die in this film, unflinchingly. The best thing about the film is just how damn beautifully shot it is, by DOP Kolja Brandt (“Goethe!”). In fact not only is the cinematography good, but the scenery and set design also combine to make this look a lot nicer and more expensive than it probably was. Although Garrick Hagon (Biggs Darklighter from “Star Wars: A New Hope”) is pretty decent as the Robert Vaughn/Kevin McCarthy-type character, it’s a bit of a shame that his character proves such a 2005 cliché in a 2012 film. Sure, you’re initially unsure where this is all headed, but once Hagon turns up, it’s a bit old-hat, really. Haliburton much? That and the insanely irritating character played by Liana Liberato (just shut the fuck up and do what your father says, you miserable tit!) aren’t enough to drag this one down, though.

 

It may not be anything new, but it’s a solid and engrossing film in the moment, and a cut above most of these Europe-set spy-thrillers. It deserved a better fate, it’s certainly better than many theatrically-released action/thrillers one could name.

 

Rating: B-