The Expatriate


This film, while not terrible or even bad like it's box office might suggest, does suffer from living in the shadow of The Bourne Identity. While Aaron Eckhart does a satisfactory job at being an aged Jason Bourne, the story is just not very interesting. The whole plot regarding security systems and Halgate company needed to be streamlined and more emphasis put into capturing Eckhart. As it was the movie gets complicated when it really doesn't need to. It also rides on the wave of convenience more than once, which makes it sloppy compared to the precise detail of the Bourne series.

Olga Kurylenko plays a small role as some C.I.A. operative and, whilst beautiful, doesn't really offer much. But it is nice to see her having more of a career than most Bond girls. The best performance comes from Trust's Liana Liberato, who, for a fairly inexperienced actress, shines. If you haven't seen Trust, I suggest you do - great, powerful film by Friends' Ross; David Schwimmer.

Good explosion at the end, and a neat little hand-to-hand combat scene in the subway station with Eckhart and two guards, but other than that, the action is thin. It has all of the intense music and intense glares from Eckhart (who I still am not convinced is a good actor), but no plot for an audience to care about, so it just falls flat. That said, it not surprisingly offers more than many big budget Hollywood pictures this year; The Hunger Games, for example.

C+