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" The words &amp;quot;based on a true story&amp;quot; usually inspire a bit of cynicism, but at the top of Killer Elite, they actually cause a few giggles. The pre-credits sequence sees assassin Danny (Jason Statham) being saved by his pal Hunter (Robert De Niro) after failing to pull the trigger at the vital moment. There was a little kid in the car. He can&amp;#039;t do this no more, right? In fact, he&amp;#039;s outtathegame. We&amp;#039;re guessing that scene in particular is more &amp;quot;based on&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;true story&amp;quot;. Danny swans off into the sunset to build a new life, but of course his approach to retirement is like Sir Alex Ferguson&amp;#039;s. Without his chaperone, Hunter bites off more than he can chew, and Danny has to go in and take on one last job to save his dear friend. He teams up with ex-Para Davies (Dominic Purcell) and smartarse Meier (Aden Young). That last job involves tracking down some ex-SAS types and destroying them, like Harry Potter and chums going after Horcruxes. And, even if his brief wasn&amp;#039;t hard enough - he has to force confessions and make the deaths look accidental - Danny has yet more trouble when some oldies in business suits put another ex-SAS chap Spike (Clive Owen) on his tail. It chucks along at a relatively fair pace. Statham does his strong, (relatively) silent thing, looking moody and distant between punching people in the face. De Niro is all grizzled and homely as the man who&amp;#039;s clearly stayed in the game a little longer than he should have. The story, inspired by Ranulph Fiennes&amp;#039;s controversial 1991 bit of faction The Feather Men, is actually a pretty decent kick-off point. The action bits are nicely stuck together and don&amp;#039;t rely on brain-frazzling fast cuts to force the momentum. The performances, especially a film-stealing Owen as the never-say-die ex-soldier, are more than good enough. The flashbacks to the life Danny has left behind to take on the job are tedious distraction though, and apart from some wonderfully-realised hair and vintage cars, the smatterings of &amp;#039;80s period detail (skinheads, oi and rubbish architecture) fail to really drag you into the era. Also, it&amp;#039;s been dubbed by its star as &amp;quot;a thinking men&amp;#039;s action movie&amp;quot;, and it&amp;#039;s when things things try to get a bit clever-clever that they really disappoint. Having a load of evil businessmen talk archly about getting blood on their pinstripes may be good fun, but as a commentary on our times it&amp;#039;s as subtle as a thwack from a sledgehammer coated in shiny bathroom tiles. But, if you want a biting satire on Western involvement in the Middle East, or a heartbreaking examination of how violence and revenge begets only more violence and revenge, then you&amp;#039;re obviously going to be in the wrong place. In fact, if you disengage just a few of your critical faculties Killer Elite does just about enough to stop you needing to think all that much until the popcorn&amp;#039;s done.  Watch the trailer for Killer Elite below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a341782/killer-elite-review/>