But beware, as soon as anyone’s kid or significant other is idealized, the cheezy plot device alarm goes off. The innocent family members are going to be put in harm’s way. Naturally, the badass hero must jet into action and rescue the child or whoever, exact revenge on the twisted, evil rat bastards, or preferably, both.
In Silencers, the main characters are all killers perched on various rungs of what you might call the “ladder of derangement.” The hero, Frank (Johnny Messner), a troubled Iraqi War veteran, is a former contract killer who’s called out of retirement for one last job. He’s on about the first or second rung of the ladder, I’d say. Not a drooling psycho, exactly, but he can be set off. Then there’s gang leader Ochoa (Danny Trejo) and his crew. They’re high enough on my imaginary ladder to paint to rain gutters on your house. There’s really not much to say about any of them. You’ve seen ’em all before.
And the acting is uniformly uniform. Messner doesn’t speak his lines so much as growl them. And, oh, what lines they are. When he’s cornered into doing a hit for Trejo he fairly spits out his words. “This is my last job! Com-prende, amigo?”
“…all of the tiresome cliches are present and accounted for.”
Aside from delivering regrettable dialog, Frank/Messner is haunted by a traumatic event that occurred 10 years earlier in Iraq. He’s unable to pull the trigger on the one Trejo wants him to waste, and that’s when things get more desperate for the rusty freelance sniper.
Rest assured that all of the tiresome cliches are present and accounted for. One of the bad guys, the boss’s flunky, is not only stupid and evil, but also an annoying dick. So Frank has an extra little score to be settled, and you know how it’s going to play out. He’s also a recovering alcoholic, so watch for the showdown he’s bound to have with the bottle.
