Jonathan Lynn is the director of such high-concept/low-quality comedies as Nuns on the Run and Clue (aka the Cluedo movie), and anyone who has seen those will know what to expect from Wild Target, an extremely ropey remake of Pierre Salvadori’s jocular, 1993 French hit Cible Emouvante. Bill Nighy plays hermetic, near silent and sexually confused assassin Victor Maynard who – via a series of unlikely events – must turn protector to brassy kleptomaniac Emily Blunt and pot-bonging naif Rupert Grint. The actors do the best with what they’re given – it’s just a shame they’ve been given so little. The script is free of either zingers or insight, the inertia of the story is constantly stalled by deviation (including a superfluous homoerotic vignette which appears to be a cheap excuse to show Grint in the nude) and entire characters – including the ‘baddie’ of the piece, Rupert Everett – are left to fade into the background. Nothing feels like it’s been properly thought through, highlighted by the fact that Nighy’s ‘super assassin’ goes about his business by merely opening fire on a crowded market place (using a silencer, of course!).

David Jenkins

From Time Out London

Dir Jonathan Lynn, Category IIA, 98 mins, Opens September 2