Fast Charlie is a peculiar movie, blending high-end elements with low-end ones in a manner I’ve scarcely seen before. On the high-end, it’s directed by Phillip Noyce, the guy who helmed Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Salt. Also, it’s written by none other than Richard Wenk, who penned all three Equalizer movies and has become a go-to action screenwriter. And most notably, it stars Pierce Brosnan, a former 007 whose best days are indeed behind him, but who remains a capable leading man. Then there’s the low-end: cheap-looking credits, bad VFX, royalty-free-sounding music, and so on. This convergence of the great and terrible results in a revenge thriller that’s both absorbingly entertaining and distractingly clumsy. Yet, somehow, it’s still better than many of the big studio releases in its genre.

Brosnan plays Charlie Swift, an aging fixer/hitman loyal to Stan Mullen (James Caan), an even older mob boss operating in Biloxi, Mississippi. When a younger rival, Beggar Mercado (Gbenga Akinnagbe), attacks Mullen and his crew, Charlie takes it upon himself to exact revenge. Meanwhile, Beggar is pursuing a disc which contains evidence that could badly compromise him. Realizing that disc could give him an advantage, Charlie teams up with Marcie Kramer (Morena Baccarin), a local taxidermist who’s also the ex-wife of the criminal who stole and hid the disc somewhere in New Orleans. With a climactic showdown fast approaching, Charlie finds himself falling in love with Marcie, complicating an already complicated situation.

If nothing else, this movie has an appropriate title. Fast Charlie is a tight 90-minute action thriller, hitting its credits around 85 minutes in. However, and you may have noticed this from my synopsis, there’s quite a bit of stuff packed into its plot. Now, I normally don’t mind lean action flicks that sacrifice story for pace, but I could have used a bit more exposition here. A lot of things kind of happen with barely any explanation or backstory. It’s frustrating. Be that as it may, this does mean that more time is allocated to the interpersonal relationships of the characters. Who needs a nuanced crime story when you can have Brosnan and Caan grace us with a touching father-son-esque relationship?* It seems Wenk asked himself that very question when writing this, settling on something that’s quite agreeable. As good as those two are on-screen, Brosnan and Baccarin are even better. When it comes to their characters, sure, Charlie is considerably older than Marcie, but the way he treats her – showing sincere interest in her trade, respecting her wishes, etc. – makes their burgeoning romance seem entirely plausible. And it helps that Brosnan is still Pierce frickin’ Brosnan, and that Baccarin keeps reminding us that she should’ve had a bigger career in movies. They’re terrific actors who exhibit great chemistry, and their characters’ partnership is the best element of Fast Charlie.

Sadly, other elements don’t work quite as well, to say the least. The action is really hit-or-miss, which is disappointing coming from Phillip Noyce. On one hand, there’s a hotel sequence that sees Charlie and Beggar’s top henchman square off in a really intense, propulsive clash. On the other, there are multiple moments where Charlie just shoots people and CGI blood sprays out of CGI gunshot wounds that even I know how to create via Adobe After Effects. There’s not too much VFX in Fast Charlie, but when there is, it looks amateurishly low-budget. In truth, all of the post-production looks rather cheap. The opening credits are choppy, bland, and way too drawn-out. The end credits are even worse, using Arial or something like it as the font. And the music sounds as generic as it gets. I don’t know if the filmmakers blew all of their budget on actors or what, but leaving so little for everything else was a disservice to what could’ve been a top-notch little genre film.

That being said, Fast Charlie is still admirable for what it is. Wenk’s script, while inconsistent, incorporates a thoughtful romance that fits the characters, as well as the actors and their skill-sets. And what a range of skill-sets they have, with Brosnan standing out from the pack by demonstrating once again how well his demeanor is suited to action movies. He’s so good, but unfortunately, these old-man-kicking-ass-and-getting-revenge flicks went out of vogue after Liam Neeson’s 353rd entry into the subgenre. Even so, I still believe that if Fast Charlie had been given a little more money and runtime, it could’ve revitalized this kind of film. As it is, though, it’s simply an above-average VOD rental doused in a lacquer of cinematic renown.

If I had to score it, I’d give Fast Charlie a 6/10.

Notes:

* James Caan filmed his scenes for Fast Charlie only weeks before he passed away, and his sickly state shows on-screen. Despite his feeble condition, he gives a first-class performance that becomes even more heartbreaking when knowing how close to the end he was. Considering the mediocre quality of his late-career films, I’m glad that he got to go out on a decent one.