Cold Blood (2019)

“Retired” hit man has retreated to the middle of nowhere to get away from his life. His peaceful existence is interrupted when an injured woman crawls out of the forest and passes out. Nursing her back to health complications arise when she is discovered to be not only the daughter of his last victim, but also his last target… and she’s there to kill him.

Both needlessly messy (the plotting and storytelling is all over the place) and way too neat (you really tied everything up didn’t you?) film is one you watch largely because you have to know how this is going to play out. On some level that’s a good thing but mostly it’s an indication at just how out there and WTF this film is. Beyond the fact that the film star Jean Reno, I was watching this because I really couldn’t believe where this was going. I was shaking my head at some of the twists, and realized that pretty much anything could happen and I wouldn’t have blinked.

While not a bad movie (it has Jean Reno in it so how bad could it be?),COLD BLOOD isn’t a particularly good one. Sure it’s something that holds your attention as you try to work out what is going on, but it’s never anything you’d want to see a second time. Worse, I’m not sure seeing how it all played out was worth 90 minutes of my time. I won’t blame anyone other than screenwriter Frédéric Petitjean who came up with this mess.

While the film opens Friday in theaters I’d wait for it to come to cable or streaming service where the sting of paying for it will be prorated with everything else.