Today’s quick review: 3 Days to Kill. Ethan (Kevin Costner) is a lifelong CIA agent with a troubled family life. When he is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he retires to Paris to spend his remaining days with his ex-wife (Connie Nielsen) and his estranged teenage daughter (Hailee Steinfeld). But when a mysterious woman named Vivi (Amber Heard) offers him an experimental cancer drug, he must perform one last mission to prolong his time with his family.
3 Days to Kill is a hybrid spy thriller, family drama, and comedy. Despite having a spy thriller’s premise, 3 Days to Kill spends most of its time on the relationship between Ethan and his daughter. The spy elements are worked in intermittently, a series of violent tasks Ethan must complete between attempts to repair his relationship with his daughter. The film is laced with humor, from Ethan’s unglamorous job as a spy to his attempts to elicit parenting advice from the people he kidnaps.
The fusion does not work well. As a spy thriller, 3 Days to Kill is hampered by a thin plot, a frumpy protagonist, and long breaks spent on the family side of the plot. As a family drama, it is a mediocre effort with awkward moments and an inconsistent tone. As a comedy, it is undermined by the serious nature of the plot, running smack into Ethan’s personal issues every time the tone begins to lighten.
3 Days to Kill attempts to do too much and winds up with a very inconsistent tone and mediocre execution. Dropping just one of the aspects of the film would have been enough to turn it into a decent watch: a fun spy comedy with a middle-aged, unsophisticated protagonist; a tense spy thriller about a dying spy’s final days; or a heartwarming family drama about a dying man’s attempts to win his daughter’s heart. But the combination of all three prevents the film form ever getting off the ground.
Watch 3 Days to Kill if you are in the mood for a middling spy film and you do not mind some tonal dissonance. The film shows some potential, but its inconsistency ensures that its potential is never realized. Skip it unless you are curious.
6.2 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.0 for a couple of good ideas that would be better on their own than they are together.