The Protege

I was pleasantly surprised by The Foreigner so I thought I would probably like another action thriller from director Martin Campbell.  I saw his latest, The Protege, last night and, even though it is not a great movie, I enjoyed it anyway.  Moody Dutton (Samuel L. Jackson) is a highly sought-after international assassin who rescues a young girl (Eva Nguyen Thorsen) in Vietnam after she kills the men who kidnapped her and killed her family.  He becomes a surrogate father to her and teaches her everything he knows.  Thirty years later Anna Dutton (Maggie Q) is also an international assassin working with Moody on high-profile contracts.  When Moody is assassinated Anna vows revenge and eventually locates the man responsible in Vietnam.  She must return to her native land to confront her past but not before going toe to toe with the killer's fixer, Michael Rembrandt (Michael Keaton).  The story is incredibly convoluted and doesn't always make sense (I had no idea what was going on some of the time and I felt like I had missed a key piece of information), the characters are very one-dimensional, and there is a strange twist in the third act but this hardly matters.  Maggie Q and Michael Keaton have tremendous chemistry, whether it is in the scenes where they exchange witty banter or in the scenes where they try to kill each other, and they are so much fun to watch.  The action sequences are fantastic, especially all of the hand-to-hand combat.  I also really liked the ending because it is bold and not what I was expecting.  Maggie Q is incredibly fierce in the role and I would definitely like to see her in more (and better) action thrillers in the future.  It's not what I would call a "must-see" but it is very entertaining so I recommend it to fans of the genre (especially when it becomes available on a streaming platform).