Requiem for a Killer.

French director Jerome Le Gris’s debut film puts forward the ridicules premise that to be a successful assassin you have to be an accomplished musician! Lucrece, (Melanie Laurent) an opera singer turned assassin gets one final contract to carry out before she retires to take up a motherly role with her eight year old daughter. Employed indirectly by a British Oil company to bump off Alexandra Child (Christopher Stills), a professional opera singer, because of his refusal to sell them a large piece of real estate in the Highlands of Scotland that stand’s in the way of the completion of an oil pipeline worth fortunes to the corporation. Also involved is special agent Rico (Clovis Cornillac) an orchestral guitarist whose job it is to track down and kill Child’s killer. All the action takes place at a music festival at a Swiss chateau where a performance of Handel’s Messiah is to take place.  

Normally I quite enjoy a ‘cold-blooded’ female assassin but Nikita (1990) it isn’t although Tcheky Karyo plays a similar role in Requiem for a Killer (2011) but without the intrigue.  Melanie Laurent has also been used too much better effect in films like Days of Glory (2006), Le Concert (2009), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and the award winning Beginners (2011). It’s all very pretty and polished to look at, but it lacks even a glimmer of real excitement. Dull, silly, implausible and lacking in depth.