Movie review: "Wanted"

Oh, this is a good one. It will be difficult to top this one for the best action adventure of the summer. It has the mystery of "The Matrix" and the excitement of "Gone in Sixty Seconds" all done with a slight hint of "National Treasure" and the distinct flavor of Sam Peckinpah. Add in a great cast including Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy from "Atonement", and perennial star Morgan Freeman, and you just cannot go wrong.

The movie is about accountant Wesley Gibson, who is a feeble, self-pitying and uninteresting young man working a nine to five job and being pushed around by just about anyone and everyone he comes in contact with. Even his best friend thinks nothing of "tapping" his girlfriend on a regular basis. Gibson just accepts everything as his lot in life and keeps taking his prescription medication to control his anxiety until an assassination changes his life.

After the fateful assassination, a thousand year old fraternity of weavers turned assassins comes recruiting young Gibson. What? Gibson seems like the most unlikely of characters until he they tell him that the man assassinated was his father, and, believing Gibson possesses the same hidden talents, they want to send him to revenge his father's death.

At first, Gibson is reluctant to cooperate, does not understand the unusual training techniques, and resists his rapid education the way Daniel LaRusso resisted Mr. Miagi in "The Karate Kid". Eventually, however, he comes around and begins to display the talent the fraternity hoped he would and he is given his first mission. He learns that assignments handed out by the head assassin, Sloan, actually come from a special weaving machine that lays threads in binary code that are written down and decoded to produce names. (Yeah, I know, but they had to come up with something).

After Gibson is shot and nearly killed by the man he seeks, the special bullet left in his arm leads him to the location where the bullet was produced. At that location, he meets the bullet's molder, a man named Pekwarsky who agrees to arrange a meeting between the two. The meeting ends up as a deadly chase on a train where Gibson has the opportunity to kill the man who killed his father and does. In an usual twist, Gibson learns that the man he seeks is, in reality, his real father, (Luke, I am your father!). The assassin was not trying to kill Gibson, but rather to protect him from the Fraternity of Assassins. Gibson's real father did not want him to lead the life of an assassin and wanted him have a normal life with a house in the suburbs, a wife and kids; something like what he has now. The Fraternity of Assassins, however, wanted him to join their group and recruited him since he was the only one of them they knew Gibson's father would not kill. Gibson also discovers that Sloan's name was woven by the weaver and should have been assassinated himself. Feeling double-crossed, Gibson plots revenge.

Using a little trick he learned from a Russian friend, he attaches time bombs to rats he captures at the dump. Then, he loads up a trash truck full of the little assassins and heads for the headquarters of the fraternity. A gun battle ensues, Gibson unloads the rats, and the little time bombs do their work. Gibson then enters the complex looking to kill Sloan and killing anyone who comes in his way. Finally, all the remaining human assassins surround him in the circular research room and Sloan enters. Gibson reveals Sloan's secret and shows everyone the weave with Sloan's name on it. Sloan proceeds to tell everyone that all of their names came up at one time or another and the only way to fulfill their oaths would be to either kill themselves or kill Gibson. No one wants to die and Gibson is about to be shot when one assassin, Fox, unleashes a curved bullet that kills everyone in the room including herself. The only two to escape are Sloan and Gibson.

We are led to believe that the Fraternity of Assassins is finished and that Gibson chose to return to his ordinary life and common existence. Then, in an unusual twist, Sloan is standing behind who we think is Gibson, but who turns out to be just a decoy. In a little trick he learned from his father, Gibson has baited, trapped and assassinated Sloan with a special bullet fired from far away. The director ties everything in at the end, erases Gibson's old life and leaves the audience with the rhetorical question, "What the **** have you done lately?"

This movie rates an "A". Kids whose parents allow them to see it, office wimps nurturing thoughts of revenge, and anyone who enjoys a good action, "shoot-em-up" movie with great special effects will love it. Although a bit violent, the movie is well done, the acting is good, and the excitement lasts throughout.

Title: Wanted

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Genre: Action Adventure, Rating: R, Run Time: One hour 50 minutes

Cast: James McAvoy as Wesley Gibson, Angelina Jolie as Fox, Morgan Freeman as Sloan