‘Fast Charlie’
Manager: Philip Noyce
Distribution: Pierce Brosnan, Morena Baccarin, James Caan, Gbenga Akinnagbe
Year: 2023
Premiere: July 17, 2024
★★★
A hitman employed by a criminal organization, the kind of thug who shoots first and asks questions later – or doesn’t ask at all – finds himself caught in a conspiracy that forces him to embark on a bloodbath driven by his thirst for revenge and rethink the lifestyle he’s led for decades. Sound familiar? Sure. On paper, ‘Fast Charlie’ is little more than a simple concoction of a collection of entirely familiar and predictable narrative pieces. Yet thanks to the energy and love instilled in him by director Phillip Noyce The charisma that Pierce Brosnan’s hero radiates from his skinIt is, by definition, much more important and entertaining than it has any right to be.
Noyce, who has been confirmed over the years as a talented master of crime cinema, gives the story an attitude that evokes the traditions of Elmore Leonard’s literature – his official model is of course the novel ‘Gun Monkeys’ by Victor Gischler. sharp dialogues, a few distracting plot twists and a dark comic tone that stands out especially in the murder scenes, which are each more inventive; in any case, the humor is softened by the twilight air surrounding the ensemble, and the presence of the now deceased James Caan in the cast is responsible for emphasizing this. What gives “Fast Charlie” its dramatic engine, of course, is its title character’s autumnal romance amid the chaos.It’s convincing and frighteningly sensitive enough to keep us on our toes, even in those passages of the film where no character dies in strange ways.