If you reimagined Jean Reno’s character in Léon: The Professional had he lived, you might get the action thriller The Florist with Dennis Quaid. Quaid plays a horticulturalist by day and assassin by night who comes across a girl looking for her brother and manages to get entangled with corrupt cops.
Carl (Quaid) and Charlie (Reno) co-own a floral shop, but that’s just a front for who they really are: hired killers. One day, Layla (Sky Katz) wanders into their shop and asks about her younger brother, who has been missing for three months. That night, Carl gets a call about a hit that takes him to a seedy motel that also acts as a brothel and drug operation. It just so happens that Layla ends up at the motel as well, doing a drop for her roommate. As Carl takes out a bunch of thugs who are his targets, he later discovers that he killed a cop in the firefight. The hit could potentially point fingers at Woodcock (Leonidas Gulaptis), a corrupt cop involved with the whole drug operation, and he wants any loose ends tied up. Woodcock goes looking for Layla, who was basically in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s now up to Carl to protect Layla before Woodcock can get to her.
Layla (Sky Katz) looks up from a crouch in a dim store aisle in The Florist.
“Quaid plays a horticulturalist by day and assassin by night…”
I’ve seen Dennis Quaid play all sorts of roles, and I even thought he was spot-on casting as General Hawk in the first live-action G.I. Joe movie, even though that movie was crap. Quaid taking on the role of a hitman was a big attraction for me, with the added bonus of Jean Reno. Unfortunately, where you should be hitting your target, this was a miss.
I mainly see a balance issue between our more well-known actors and the weaker supporting talent, along with poor direction of a simple story. It’s like watching a football game with a star quarterback but lesser supporting talent to keep the team from winning games. Quaid is strong and commands his presence in his scenes, but when the film cuts to other storylines, the weaker acting is distracting. Jean Reno’s character is a bit underused, but if there is a highlight besides Quaid, it’s Sky Katz, who really helps drive the audience’s investment in her character throughout the film. I look forward to watching more of her future work.
The Florist isn’t a high-budget action film, so there are plenty of scenes that likely use more After Effects for gunshots, explosions, etc., and that’s fine. The execution by director Babak Najafi, however, comes up short. So short that when you finally get to the third act, which, as we all know, should lead to some sort of big showdown, the encounter never really takes off.
Ultimately, the film had a good concept and a draw with Dennis Quaid, but it needed stronger directing to truly do it justice.
"…If you reimagined Jean Reno’s character in Léon: The Professional..."
