THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (35)

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker

The Pitch: A professional killer gets other killers on his trail when he refuses to carry out his latest assignment - the murder of a child.

Theo Sez: I suspect I'm getting too old for this shit. Straight-to-video plotting and a rather rudimentary sense of style - little more than flashing lights and breathless cutting, really - add up to a film so staggeringly blah and uninspired even random observations seem superfluous, let alone a considered review. Is it worth mentioning that Chow and Sorvino somnambulate through terminally undernourished parts, wearing vaguely uneasy, this-is-just-a-transitional-phase-my-career-is-going- through expressions? That a modish soundtrack offers occasional distraction, even though its trip-hoppy strains don't really fit the aggressive images? That the film does admittedly provide some decent eye-candy, albeit in a vacuous, instantly forgettable way - lots of spectacular set-pieces, no good reason to give a damn about any of them? That the title feels awkward and ungrammatical (not unlike a translation of a Hong Kong action-movie title actually, though I can't believe it's deliberate), or that the titular killers play only a very small part in the narrative?...Nah, probably not...