Victor Maynard is a middle-aged snobbish Brit who is a professional assassin at the top of his game and in great demand. One day instead of killing his latest victim he inadvertently saves her from another assassin and starts a whole train of events that set the pace for this very gentle and typically English comedy.
This one is distinguished by the fact that Maynard is played perfectly by the inestimable Bill Nighy, and although Emily Blunt does a nice turn in this (her first comedy) there is something discomforting and unbelievable in the May-December romance that develops between the two leads. Add to the mix the two Ruperts. First Mr. Grint now grown up, fresh from playing Ron (Harry Potter), as the Hit-Man’s apprentice; and then Mr. Everett as The Baddie with a beard that (almost) covers up his dreadful new face that some plastic surgeon has left him with. But it’s the indomitable Eileen Atkins who steals the show in her cameo role as Maynard’s overbearing mother : she must have been so relieved to be able to get out of those historical costume dramas she’s in and for once end up toting a sub machine gun from a wheelchair!
★★★★★★
